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EVERY  MAN 
HIS  CHANCE 


MATILDA  WOODS  STONE 


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Every  Man  His  Chance 


EVERY  MAN  HIS 
CHANCE 

MATILDA  WOODS  STONE 


BOSTON 
RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

Ube  (3orbam  prees 
1909 


Copyright  1W8  by  Matilda  Woods  Stone 
AH  rights  reserved 


THE  GORHAM  PRESS 
BOSTON,  U.  3.  A. 


BOOK   ONE 


2138437 


Every  Man  His  Chance 

CHAPTER  I 


IN  the  brightness  of  a  clear  June  morning  1881» 
the  stage  which  was  to  bring  Catharine  Paine 
and   Mrs.   Allen   into   Rapid,   put   out   from 
Pierre,  South  Dakota. 

Catharine  walked  through  the  combination  bar- 
room, office,  and  parlor  of  the  Hanson  House,  held 
her  skirts  aside  from  the  saw-dust  spit  box  near 
the  door  and  passed  out  to  the  edge  of  the  rough 
board  porch,  where  she  stood  watching  Ellis  Hall 
make  the  last  preparations  for  departure.  On  her 
east  the  brown  prairie  reached  out  to  a  pale  blue 
sky  line;  on  her  west  the  cotton  woods  along  the 
banks  of  the  Missouri  made  a  scragged  patch  of 
green;  behind  her  rose  the  flat  bare  front  of  the 
unpainted  two-story  building.  She  steadied  her- 
self at  the  end  of  one  of  the  erratic  projections  of 
the  irregular  length  planks  that  formed  the  squat 
piazza.  The  wind  blew  her  skirts  out  behind  and 
she  poised  herself  sturdily  against  it.  The  com- 
panion allotted  her  the  night  before  as  a  bed-fellow 


8  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

came  up  and  laid  a  friendly  hand  on  her  shoulder; 
whereupon  she  shook  back  the  sun  bonnet  she  had 
chosen  as  a  protection  on  her  journey  and  received 
the  wind  in  her  face  and  hair.  She  was  taller  than 
the  girl  beside  her  almost  by  a  head.  Her  features 
as  the  lines  of  her  body,  were  sharply  marked,  each 
seemingly  too  prominent  for  the  others.  From  the 
square  chin  to  the  full  forehead,  it  was  a  decisive 
face  unfavored  with  any  obvious  means  whereby 
to  manifest  animation.  The  dark  skin  was  color- 
less and  a  smile  came  none  too  easily.  But  trans- 
forming face  and  figure  to  a  character  of  their 
own  were  the  indefinable  marks  of  youth. 

Even  more  did  the  same  subtle  harmonizer  of 
parts  dominate  the  presence  of  Mildred  Larsh. 
Her  plump,  well-rounded  figure  and  rosy  cheeks 
brought  forth  a  vision  of  a  plenteous  Iowa  farm 
from  which  full  ripened  fruits  go  forth  to  market 
and  bright  ribbons  come  back.  The  night  before 
an  impromptu  ball  took  place  in  the  one  public  room 
of  the  hotel.  Mildred  was  the  only  woman  and 
danced  in  turn  with  a  score  of  men.  Catharine, 
neutrally  genial,  contributed  the  music.  Mildred 
lingered,  rollickingly  bent  on  more  fun  when 
Catharine  withdrew.  Although  neither  of  the  girls 
experienced  a  magnetic  drawing  toward  the  other, 
yet  neither  was  untouched  by  the  bond  of  their  sex 
and  their  youth.  Under  their  red  blanket,  in  the 
late  sleepiness  of  the  previous  evening,  they  agreed 
to  discard  all  formality  in  address.  They  were  to 
be  "Mildred"  and  "Catharine"  to  each  other. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  9 

"Mr.  Tyler  and  I  are  going  to  shoot  quail  and 
prairie  chickens.  When  we  don't  shoot,  we  are  to 
play  penuchle,"  Mildred  announced. 

Catharine  turned  indifferently  and  nodded  to  Mr. 
Tyler  who  had  joined  them.  Her  glance  took  in 
the  complication  of  lines  out  of  which  he  made  a 
smile,  the  cigarette  between  the  first  and  second 
fingers  of  his  small  right  hand,  and  the  curl  of  his 
lips; — if  not  wicked,  it  was  hateful. 

"I  ride  outside  with  Mr.  Hall,"  she  answered 
loftily,  and  stepping  out  upon  the  ground,  went 
toward  him.  The  swing  of  her  body  had  something 
in  common  with  the  sweep  of  the  prairie  and  with 
Ellis  Hall's  careless  nod  of  assent  when  she  spoke 
to  him. 

Fred  Tyler's  eyes  followed  her  dreamily  and  the 
mocking  creases  in  his  face  assumed  an  aspect  of 
pain.  Then  he  laid  his  hand  familiarly  on  Mil- 
dred's arm.  "Where  are  your  traps?"  he  asked. 
"We're  about  ready  to  move." 

Catharine  had  been  lifted  to  her  place  just  back 
of  the  horses.  Mildred  and  Fred  were  arranging 
bags  and  shawls  and  jackets  and  baskets  in  the 
back  seat  of  the  coach,  when  the  fourth  passenger 
for  Rapid,  having  issued  from  the  hotel  at  an  in- 
conspicuous moment,  stood  presenting  herself  for 
transportation.  Catharine  looked  down  upon  her 
in  puzzled  scrutiny.  She  comprehended  Mr.  Hall, 
his  face  bearded  almost  to  his  eyes,  his  kind  gruff 
voice,  and  intermittent  spurts  of  tobacco  juice.  She 
had  passed  lenient  judgment  upon  Mildred  and 


10  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

severe  upon  Mr.  Tyler.  But  there  was  nothing  in 
her  experience  by  which  to  interpret  the  glaringly 
manifest  tokens  of  characterization  in  the  woman 
before  her.  All  that  might  be  gathered  from  her 
face  and  dress  was  outside  Catharine's  world.  But 
in  the  self  righteous  cruelty  of  her  seventeen  years, 
she  turned  her  eyes  away  with  an  instinctive  im- 
pulse of  disdainful  withdrawal. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  following  morning  at  the  first  relay 
station,  Catharine  crept  out  of  the  interior 
of  the  coach  and  in  the  chill  of  the  disap- 
pearing night,  looked  back  to  the  east.  Between 
the  unbroken  brown-gray  of  the  prairie  and  the 
blue-gray  of  the  sky,  the  sun  rise  glowed  from 
north  to  south.  Before  her,  a  man  sleepy  yet  auto- 
matically alert  held  four  harnessed  horses.  Ellis 
Hall  swung  down  from  his  seat,  and  Catharine 
climbed  up  unaided.  In  wordless  harmony,  the  men 
moved  with  deft  swiftness.  The  straps  that  bound 
them  fell  from  the  tired  horses,  and  in  an  instant  the 
waiting  ones  were  fastened  in  their  places.  Ellis 
Hall  pulled  the  buckle  of  the  last  strap  firm,  folded 
his  black  snake  in  his  hand  with  exact  precision, 
and  in  two  long  steps  drew  himself  up  beside  the 
girl.  She  caught  one  glance  behind  where  the  first 
rich  red  of  dawn  was  breaking  into  spreading  day- 
light, one  at  the  unbrightened  dusk  before,  and  one 
at  the  man  alone  between,  who  with  his  hand  on  the 
horses'  bridles  waiting,  had  watched  for  the  coach 
to  come  and  waiting  watched  for  it  to  go.  Ellis 
Hall  let  out  his  black  snake  till  its  tip  touched 


11 


12  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

the  foremost  horse.  Catharine  bent  quickly.  "Good- 
bye," she  cried.  The  man  below  turned  his  head 
startled.  "Oh!  Good-bye."  They  were  beyond  hear- 
ing when  he  got  it  out.  But  Catharine's  eyes  were 
still  intent  on  the  solitary  figure,  standing  in  the 
circle  of  the  horizon,  only  the  horses,  the  stable 
shed,  and  living  shack  about  him.  She  waved.  His 
hands  held  the  horses  but  he  smiled  to  himself. 
Catharine  drew  the  buffalo  skin  before  her.  Sitting 
very  still  she  breathed  deeply.  The  swift  clatter  of 
the  horses  hoofs  and  the  passing  of  the  changeless 
prairie,  and  the  long  draughts  of  cold  air  filled  her 
with  an  exhilaration  and  with  a  strength  to  retain  it. 

Almost  an  hour  passed.  The  east  had  lost  its 
color  and  the  west  was  filled  with  light,  when  she 
whispered,  "There  is  no  pause  on  the  prairie." 

Her  companion  shook  his  head.  Above  his  beard- 
ed face,  his  eyes  regarded  her  and  she  felt  that  she 
was  answered. 

She  reached  for  the  black  snake  she  had 
learned  to  wield  the  day  before,  folded  it  with  at- 
tentive care,  then  threw  it  out  with  gleeful  skill. 
Her  dark  skin  glowed  as  the  horses  raced  in  ready 
response. 

"I  should  like  to  be  the  foremost",  she  breathed. 

Ellis  Hall  nodded. 

"You  love  it,"  she  accused. 

The  man  looked  unswervingly  before  him. 

"The  strange  woman  was  good  to  me  in  the 
night,"  she  stated  abruptly.  The  fact  rose  within 
her,  distinct,  indubitable,  rooted  in  the  full  life  of 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  18 

the  moment.  She  spoke  it  childishly  as  something 
to  be  explained. 

"Ah!"  he  replied  equivocally,  his  face  turned  to 
her. 

"Yes,"  the  girl  answered,  wide  eyed  in  the  clear 
openness  of  the  early  hour  and  the  immeasurable 
scope  of  world  within  the  range  of  her  vision.  "She 
wrapped  me  up  in  the  middle  seat.  I  was  sleepy  and 
let  her  be  uncomfortable  cluttered  up  with  my  things 
and  hers  on  the  back  one.  Once  when  I  awakened,  I 
saw  her  face  all  wrinkled,  that  queer  faded  hair,  and 
her  eyes  bright  like  muffled  search  lights  in  the  dark. 
You'd  think  I'd  have  been  afraid  but  I  wasn't.  If 
there  had  been  a  hold-up,  she  would  have  protected 
me." 

"You  may  drive,"  Ellis  Hall  evaded  the  question- 
ing in  her  voice  and  put  the  four  lines  in  her  hands. 
Where  he  had  been  unmoved  by  constant  solicitation 
the  day  before,  he  voluntarily  favored  her  now. 

"Oh !"  she  thanked  him  arranging  them  in  imita- 
tion of  all  his  expert  precaution. 

The  day  was  well  into  the  morning  when  she  yield- 
ed them  to  him  again,  and  leaned  back  looking  stead- 
ily before  her;  weary  and  thoughtful,  sat  gazing 
across  the  immense  sameness  of  the  priarie.  Gra- 
dually an  endless  variety  of  shadings  came  out  upon 
its  brownness  like  the  moods  of  a  great  calm  soul 
that  cannot  be  stirred.  Following  the  direction  of 
rolling  draws  and  rounded  elevations,  stretched  long 
shadow  lines,  faintly  yet  differently  tinted.  Far  off 
where  the  eyes  grew  wearied  by  the  distance,  palest 


14  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

blue  died  into  faded  pink  and  clay  red  shone  dimly 
through  the  grass  in  the  sun.  Against  white  fringes 
of  rainless  clouds  a  milky  gypsum  ledge  capped  the 
last  slope.  Nearby  the  grass  was  lighted  to  straw 
bright  yellow. 

"It  comes  to  one,"  she  mused,  "only  by  much  look- 
ing." 

Ellis  Hall  answered  her  with  the  comprehending 
silence  of  the  prairie. 


CHAPTER  III 


BY  the  morning  of  the  third  day  Mildred  had 
joined  Catharine  on  the  driver's  seat.  She 
was  justly  incensed  against  Mr.  Tyler. 
After  holding  out  to  her  the  diversion  of  shooting 
game  along  the  way,  he  complacently  accepted  the 
manifest  absurdity  of  doing  so  through  the  coach 
window.  By  way  of  consolation  he  had  then  regaled 
her  with  the  possibility  of  a  hold-up.  But  the 
journey  neared  its  end  and  no  robbers  had  swept 
upon  them  in  the  darkness  of  either  night. 

"We  are  almost  there,"  she  accused  him  that  last 
morning. 

His  lip  curled  in  assent. 

"I  shall  never  speak  to  you  again,"  she  condemn- 
ed him.    "You  are  a  deceitful  man." 

He  did  not  dispute  the  point  or  beg  a  mitigation 
of  the  punishment,  even  assisted  in  placing  her  be- 
yond the  opportunity  to  rescind.  So  it  happened 
that  from  the  same  point,  at  the  same  moment  each 
girl  caught  her  first  view  of  Rapid. 

The  coach  came  slowly  down  a  long  descent,  left 
the  upward  slope  of  prairie  behind;  and  the  horses 
quickened,  racing  out  upon  the  open  level  terrace. 

15 


16  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

Before  them,  a  circular  dip  within  the  hills  around, 
lay  the  level  site  for  a  city.  Catharine  stood  up 
holding  to  Ellis  Hall's  staid  shoulder,  and  swayed  to 
the  swift  motion  precariously  poised.  The  sun  bon- 
net was  discarded  and  loosened  locks  of  straight 
hair  fell  against  her  cheeks.  Standing  there,  strong 
and  daring,  her  hand  gripping  the  man's  coat,  her 
eager  face  turned  to  the  hills,  all  grace  and  beauty 
in  the  setting  which  became  her,  she  might  have 
been  the  spirit  of  the  boom  bearing  down  upon  the 
town.    But  the  boom  was  yet  far  off. 

One  moment  her  eyes  rested  upon  the  group  of 
low  unpainted  buildings  that  huddled  in  the  middle 
of  the  space  and  straggled  sparsely  out  to  the  east ; 
then  she  looked  straight  over  them  to  where  the 
rift  in  the  foot  hills  opened  to  the  mountains  be- 
yond. Piled  behind  the  giant  gateway  were  banks 
of  blue,  light  below  and  clearer ;  further  back  deep- 
er hued,  with  distance  and  darkening  pines,  till  the 
highest  and  furthest  towered  almost  black  against 
the  pale  blue  sky.  From  the  base  of  the  blueness, 
Rapid  creek  came  forth,  and  laid  its  silvery  length 
eveningly  coiled  through  the  barren  brown  of  the 
prairie  grass.  No  willows  or  thick  stemmed  weeds 
lined  its  banks.  The  site  for  Rapid  was  verdant- 
less.  Mildred  saw  the  smallness  of  its  beginning, 
the  emptiness  of  the  dip,  the  foot  hills  stark  and 
naked  that  bounded  it  in,  and  gulped  back  a  home- 
sick sigh.  Catherine  rested  against  the  edge  of  the 
seat,  reached  for  the  whip  and  laughed  that  it  was 
refused  her. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  17 

"I  know  why  you  men  come.  It  isn't  for  money; 
it  isn't  for  your  families.  It  is  to  begin  again,  where 
there  is  nothing  to  be  put  right;  where  there  is  no 
one  to  whom  you  have  seemed  what  you  are  not; 
where  you  have  only  strength  and  opportunity,  good 
will  and  a  world  to  win." 

Behind  the  man's  whiskers  was  the  non-commit- 
tal muscular  contraction.  Catharine  caught  Mil- 
dred's hand  and  squeezed  it  heartily. 

"May  be  we  shall  have  a  jolly  time,"  Mildred  res- 
ponded, brightening. 

They  passed  a  log  house  and  a  two-roomed  shack. 
Each  looked  to  have  arrived  full-built  and  weather- 
faded  without  disturbing  the  surrounding  prairie. 
Catharine  smiled  at  the  women  and  children,  who 
gathered  at  the  doors.  Once,  at  the  cross  roads, 
they  encountered  a  group  of  cow  boys ;  and  Mildred 
dimpling  shook  out  her  handkerchief.  Then,  scarce- 
ly realizing  that  the  outskirts  had  been  reached, 
they  were  in  the  midst  of  Rapid,  drew  up  abruptly 
in  front  of  the  American  House.  There,  onerthird 
of  the  population  stood  as  if  each  man  expected  a 
brother  or  a  sister. 

Near  one  of  the  two-by-four  pillars  that  sustained 
the  upper  piazza  of  the  hotel,  Mildred  caught  sight 
of  two  men, — one  it  m^'ght  be,  in  the  early  twenties, 
the  other  in  the  late.  They  differed  from  the  major- 
ity of  the  gathering  in  the  hairlessness  of  their 
faces,  in  the  point  where  their  trousers  met  their 
boots,  and  the  reliable  and  invisible  support  given 
this  garment.    The  elder  held  his  tall  slender  figure 


18  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

with  devilish  grace.  The  cigar  in  the  corner  of  his 
mouth  protruded  jauntily,  seemingly  longer  than 
cigars  are  wont  to  be.  His  long  face  with  regular 
features  was  patrician  and  cruel.  The  other  was  a 
youth  of  open  countenance,  his  whole  appearance 
preferably  less  distinctive.  Fred  Tyler  opened  the 
stage  door  for  himself;  and,  seeing  the  two  stand- 
ing apart,  went  toward  them.  The  elder  laid  his 
hand  on  his  shoulder  with  a  hearty  grip  and  shake. 
But  Fred  Tyler's  own  hand  went  out  to  the  younger 
man. 

The  strange  woman  did  not  emerge  from  the  in- 
terior of  the  coach  till  Ellis  Hall  held  the  door  open 
and  pushed  his  head  in  inquisitively.  As  she  step- 
ped out  into  Rapid,  her  moment's  uncertainty  was 
not  timid  but  wary.  Her  eyes  swept  the  crowd 
with  hunted  keenness  till  they  came  to  the  circle  of 
three.  Then  she  went,  forthwith,  into  the  American 
House,  and  at  the  door,  the  eldest  of  the  three  men 
caught  sight  of  her  vanishing  back. 

"By  the  Blood  of  Christ,  you  skin  boned  devil, 
what's  that  you've  brought  from  Jerusalem?"  he 
burst  out  in  his  clear  sneering  voice.  His  hold  on 
Fred's  shoulder  tightened  with  something  more 
than  hearty  fellowship. 

Fred  grinned.  "She  turned  up  at  Pierre,"  he 
answered  succintly. 

The  clean-faced  boy  moved  away  with  the  irrita- 
tion of  slighted  incomprehension. 

Catharine  had  seen  the  coming  together  of  the 
three,  had  seen  likewise  the  strange  woman's  hesi- 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  19 

tancy.  Meanwhile,  she  and  Mildred  were  assisting 
each  other  over  the  high  wheel.  As  the  strange  wo- 
man entered  the  American  House,  a  thick  set,  kind- 
ly eyed  man  with  soft  gray  hair,  and  ample  gray 
whiskers,  came  out.  Taking  Mildred's  hand  pro- 
tectingly,  Catharine  went  forward  and  kissed  him 
without  caress. 

"Father,"  she  said,  "this  is  Mildred  Larsh.  She 
is  to  teach  school." 

"Umhum,"  he  responded,  shaking  Mildred's  hand 
and  looking  at  his  daughter.  "And,  now  you  are 
here,  what  are  you  going  to  do?"  In  a  moment  of 
bother  he  had  consented  to  that  for  which,  now  he 
fain  would  shift  the  responsibility  upon  the  object 
of  his  annoyance. 

Catharine  accepted  it  unpreturbed.  "How  can  I 
tell?"  she  answered,  "till  I  look  around  a  bit?'* 

Many  eyes  followed  the  two  girls  as  they  went 
into  the  hotel,  with  their  bags  in  their  hands.  In 
the  presence  of  the  predominant  masculinity  about 
them  each  was  supported  by  the  presence  of  the 
other.  Mildred  was  flushed  and  conscious  of 
their  importance.  Catharine  unaware  met  the 
men's  faces  turned  to  them  with  impartial  openness. 
She  led  the  way  to  the  desk  of  the  clerk ;  and,  reach- 
ing it,  spoke  across  the  room  to  her  father  who  slow- 
ly followed  "Must  we  sign?"  she  asked. 

He  nodded  and  the  strange  woman,  turning  away, 
handed  her  the  pen.  She  took  it  with  the  appro- 
priate thanks.  However,  when  she  looked  down, 
she  observed  and  was  surprised  that  the  space 


9Q  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

under  the  date  of  the  day  was  vacant.  There  was 
no  woman's  name  on  the  page. 

"Oh!  You  have  not  signed,"  she  apologized  offer- 
ing to  return  the  pen. 

"No,"  the  other  answered,  "I  can  wait,"  and  with 
stealthy  quickness,  she  was  nearing  the  door  at 
which  she  had  just  entered. 

Catharine  looked  after  her.  To  the  end  she  al- 
ways wondered,  if  she  had  signed,  what  name  it 
would  have  been. 


CHAPTER  IV 


DR.  Gillette's  office  was  on  the  ground  floor  of 
the  Schnasse  block,  next  door  to  Pete 
Swift's  joint.  Frequently  the  very  elite  of 
those  who  frequented  the  joint  drifted  into  the 
office  for  a  more  orderly  game  of  cards  than 
could  be  had  in  the  indiscriminate  hospitality  of  the 
Irishman's  bar-room.  Very  little  paraphernalia  indi- 
cative of  his  profession  could  be  seen  in  the  scantily 
furnished  apartment.  There  was  a  table,  a  few 
chairs,  the  white  washed  walls,  and  the  bare  floor. 
A  bulky  treatise  on  eye  and  ear  diseases  kept  com- 
pany on  the  narrow  window  sill  with  a  greasy  kero- 
sene lamp.  At  the  corner  of  the  table  rested  an 
open,  half  filled  box  of  properly  flavored  cigars. 
The  meagreness  of  his  professional  equipment  was 
not  due  to  ignorance  nor  to  an  impecunious  struggle. 
By  preference,  he  relied  upon  reckless  ingenuity, 
in  devising  make-shifts  where  surgical  attention 
was  demanded;  and  an  indifferent  policy  of  kill  or 
cure  simplified  the  treatment  of  all  other  cases.  By 
a  peculiar  twist  of  reasoning,  other  communities  as 
well  as  this  one,  made  of  his  unconcern  a  guarantee 
of  brilliancy.    By  neglect,  it  was  admitted  he  had 


21 


22  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

been  responsible  for  the  death  of  more  than  one 
man,  but  of  erroneous  diagnosis,  he  had  never  been 
guilty.  Thus  his  reputation  profited  from  his  in- 
humanity. 

When  the  youngest  of  the  three  men  withdrew 
from  the  circle  that  had  been  formed  in  front  of  the 
American  House,  the  other  two,  Fred  and  Dr.  Gil- 
lette, crossed  the  street  and  entered  the  office.  A 
half  hour  later  they  were  still  there.  Dr.  Gillette 
sat  with  one  long  leg  crossed  over  the  knee  of  the 
other,  the  invariable  full  length  cigar  projecting 
from  the  corner  of  his  mouth.  The  other  leg  tilted 
his  chair  back  from  the  small  square  table  before 
him.  Fred  leaned  forward ;  his  stubby  cigarrette  fit- 
ted into  the  yellowed  marks  on  his  first  and  second 
finger.  Enjoyment  marked  the  hateful  smile  of  his 
small  wrinkled  face.  Dr.  Gillette  accepted  his 
amusement  with  the  same  gracious  ease  with  which 
he  so  often  lost  in  the  early  stages  of  an  evening  at 
cards. 

"Damn  you,"  he  laughed,  not  without  affection, 
"you  little  cur,  you  don't  gain  anything." 

"Diversion,  perhaps,"  Fred  drawled. 

Being  seated  so  that  he  could  see  a  slight  distance 
up  the  street  he  realized  to  some  extent  how  this 
diversion  was  to  be  presently  heightened.  The 
strange  woman  stepped  noiselessly  through  the  open 
door  way  and  sank  into  the  vacant  chair  on  the  side 
of  the  table  opposite  to  Dr.  Gillette.  He  dropped 
the  tilted  front  legs  of  his  own  chair,  thrust  his 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  23 

thumbs  into  his  vest  pockets  and  by  way  of  greeting, 
exclaimed,  "God  deliver  us !" 

Her  set  lips  smiled  in  quick  hauteur,  and 
the  hollows  in  her  cheeks  deepened  beneath  the 
painted  spots  above.  It  was  a  broad  face  that  once 
in  the  past  must  have  been  frankly  open.  It  was 
open,  now,  brazen ;  and  the  large  features  stood  out 
with  prominent  sharpness.  Only  the  clear  blue  of 
the  eyes  was  unwasted.  They  were  large  and  un- 
swerving, and  held  the  man  before  her  steadily.  His 
own  dropped  to  where  he  knocked  the  ashes  from 
the  end  of  his  cigar  against  the  flat  surface  of  the 
heel  across  his  knee.  Fred  observed  with  interest 
that  it  was  Dr.  Gillette  who  winced.  A  shiver  pass- 
ed over  the  woman  but  it  moved  her  no  more  than 
the  blizzard  wind  flinging  its  swift  fury  against  the 
granite  mountain  side  can  in  a  moment  alter  the 
surface  of  its  scars. 

"Well,"  he  demanded,  unequal  to  the  strain  of  the 
silence. 

Her  reply  came  hard,  emotionless,  "I  have  fifty 
thousand  dollars  and  I  have  come  to  marry  you." 

"Fifty  thousand !  Holy  Lucifer !"  The  man  pulled 
his  thumbs  out  of  his  pockets  and  leaned  forward. 
His  voice  sank  to  the  low  sharp  level  of  her  own,  and 
he  scrutinized  her  as  if  weighing  the  money  against 
the  encumbrance.  The  result  of  the  consideration 
was  evidently  unfavorable  to  the  transaction.  He 
laughed.  Uncertain  bravado  replaced  the  assured 
waywardness  of  his  bearing.  The  hauteur  in  her 
face  leaped  into  relentless  power.    The  twist  of  the 


24  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

body  with  which  he  shifted  the  weight  from  one  hip 
to  the  other  might  be  called  a  squirm.  Contempt  en- 
forced her  realization  of  mastery.  The  sneer  in  his 
voice  lost  its  fascinating  quality  of  unruffled  compo- 
sure. It  was  marred  by  an  assumed  assertiveness  in 
the  tone  of  its  insult.  A  shamed  caution  made 
mockery  turned  against  himself  out  of  his  flippant 
retort.  "Well  now,  I  don't  know  as  I  care  to  about 
marrying.  I'll  be  a  son  to  you, — but  a  husband, — 
Great  God  r 

"You  will  marry  me  or  you  will  not  get  out  of 
this  town,"  she  answered. 

He  dropped  both  feet  on  the  floor  and  leaned  over 
the  table  asking  in  genuine  bewilderment,  "Will  you 
tell  me  why,  in  the  deuce,  you  want  to  marry  me?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  and  her  intensity  took  un- 
seemly control  of  her  voice,  "I'll  tell  Fred  also.  He 
will  understand.  A  man  sometimes  gets  glutted 
with  the  indulgence  for  which  one  skulks;  puts  it 
behind  him,  holds  his  head  up  and  no  one  looks  for 
the  vestige  of  contamination.  If  he  has  a  mind,  a 
force,  a  power  to  win  people,  it  is  enough.  None 
would  push  him  back  into  what  has  become  a  slough 
of  disgust.  Even  you,  who  haven't  put  it  behind  you, 
who  never  will,  come  in  here  where  everybody  has 
just  arrived,  and  nobody  knows  anybody  else;  you 
fasten  out  your  shingle,  and  have  money  to  invest. 
Who  asks  what  you  were  in  the  states?  Who  cares? 
While  folks  are  jostling  into  their  places,  and  fixing 
their  opinions  of  each  other,  half  of  them  won't 
know  the  difference  between  the  air  that  is  brought 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  25 

from  the  palace  salon  and  the  air  that  is  brought 
from  the  clean,  swell  drawing  room.  Because  you 
spurn  the  standards  that  frighten  them,  men  think 
you  are  splendidly  daring.  And  I," — Once  more  the 
shiver  passed  over  her.  "I  come  with  fifty  thousand 
dollars.  I  am  ready  to  buy  respect  and  live  as  other 
women  live.  People  say,  'What's  she  here  for? 
Hasn't  she  any  folks.'  Someone  comes  up  from 
Cheyenne  and  says,  *0h!'  throws  intimations  of 
what  he  could  tell  if  he  weren't  too  generous, — 
or  it  might  be  you,  when  you  began  to  feel  safe  and 
wanted  to  be  rid  of  me.  Others  fill  in  the  facts 
making  them  not  facts  of  the  past  but  of  all  time. 
If  you  marry  me, — well,  first  I  fix  you; — even  you 
couldn't  carry  off  a  gibe  at  your  own  wife.  Then  I 
have  your  name, — it  doesn't  matter  how  you've 
smirched  it.  It  won't  matter  to  the  world  of  men 
about  the  rumors  concerning  me;  if  one  man  has 
passed  them  over,  who  should  judge?  It  will  give 
me  my  chance.  I  am  forty ;  at  fifty  I  shall  have  re- 
trieved my  birth  right." 

She  had  ceased  speaking  to  Dr.  Gillette  and  he  no 
longer  listened  to  her.  It  was  to  herself  she 
made  the  vow,  it  was  Fred  who  heard  it.  There  was 
a  quizical  sweetness  in  Fred's  small  face  when  she 
caught  his  glance. 

"Why  do  you  chose  me?"  Dr.  Gillette  asked.  He 
was  gnawing  the  end  of  his  cigar,  the  light  of  which 
had  gone  out. 

"There  is  no  one  else  but  Fred,"  she  answered, 
"and  I  am  not  afraid  of  Fred.     I  have  nothing 


26  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

against  Fred.  He  was  never  ashamed  to  be  square 
with  an  accomplice  even  though  she  were  a  woman. 
I  might  worst  Fred,  filch  a  big  hand  out  of  his  very 
grasp,  and  he'd  never  open  his  mouth  about 
what  went  before  if  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
game  in  hand.  Then  Fred  wouldn't  be  so  adaptable 
to  respectibility.  He'd  do  now  but  when  Rapid  had 
a  hundred  thousand  people,  Fred  wouldn't  be  equal 
to  my  position. 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other.  All  three 
laughed  with  the  amiability  that  must  be  present  in 
the  recognition  of  a  perfect  understanding  what- 
ever its  nature. 


CHAPTER  V 


IN  the  pause  that  held  the  mirthless  humour  of 
their  unvoiced  laughter,  Dr.  Gillette  shoved 
back  his  chair,  threw  out  his  hands,  and  in 
four  long  strides  reached  the  door  of  the  office, 
laid  forcible  hands  upon  John  Allen  and  pulled  him 
in  from  the  street.  The  youth  drawn  thus  into  the 
room  almost  by  physical  compulsion,  stood  good-na- 
turedly awaiting  an  explanation.  He  was  young, 
between  twenty  and  twenty-five,  of  medium  height 
and  thickness.  There  was  a  careless  droop  to  his 
shoulders,  a  keenness  in  his  eyes,  and,  to  be  noted 
as  an  after  thought,  a  slight  heaviness  of  the  under- 
lip. 

"John,  I'm  going  to  do  you  a  good  turn,"  Dr.  Gil- 
lette announced.  He  lifted  a  chair  from  the  far 
side  of  the  table  and  adroitely  dropped  it  firm  on 
its  legs  immediately  behind  the  boy.  John  seated 
himself. 

"I  reckon  you  are  for  what  you  can  get  out  of  it," 
he  replied  unsmiling. 

Dr.  Gillette  leaned  against  the  comer  of  the  table, 
one  leg  swung  out  in  unguarded  elation.  "What  do 
you  think  would  give  you  a  start  in  the  world?"  he 


27 


28  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

put  forth  in  high  spirits.  "What  would  you  reckon 
a  man  with  a  head  for  "business,  not  befuddled  by 
any  superfluous  stuffing  of  science,  law  or  litera- 
ture, but  with  an  amazing  sane  judgment  and  a  way 
of  going  slow  and  getting  there, — a  fellow  on  this 
pattern," — and  he  slapped  John's  unresponsive 
shoulder, — what  do  you  estimate  he'd  need  for  a  be- 
ginning, to  hold  off  hand,  as  a  nest  egg  for  a  mil- 
lion?" 

Two  incipient  creases  came  down  between  the 
slight  elevations  that  protruded  above  John's  eye- 
brows. He  was  pondering  figures.  "Well  with 
people  throwing  everything  at  a  man's  head  when 
there's  a  cry  of  gold,  ten  thousand  would  be  enough," 
he  asserted  authoritively.  That  Dr.  Gillette  enter- 
tained some  nefarious  purpose  was  patently  evident 
but  to  John  that  did  not  invalidate  the  astute  cor- 
rectness of  the  summary  of  his  own  precocious 
business  discretion.  In  his  own  mind,  the  clear 
headed  recognition  of  some  design  rendered  him 
immune  from  any  danger  it  might  contain.  More- 
over, the  glance  of  the  strange  woman  contributed 
to  his  self  esteem  just  the  aliment  that  had  been 
lately  denied  it.  He  had  suffered  recent  indignity 
from  a  mere  slip  of  a  short-sighted  maid.  The  sud- 
den discovery  of  this  other  woman's  clear  blue  eyes 
fixed  upon  him,  with  the  wisdom  of  the  world  and 
admiration  for  himself,  brought  uppermost  in  his 
consciousness,  his  latent  resolve  "to  show"  the  fool- 
ish one. 

"Oh!  I  say,"  Fred  arose,  paused,  and  waited  for 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  29 

John  to  join  him.  But  John  refused  to  be  led  away. 
He  was  not  gifted  in  the  art  of  loafing  and  ordi- 
narily would  have  accompanied  the  departing  mem- 
ber of  the  group.  However,  today,  in  detecting 
Fred's  protective  impulse,  he  experienced  an  outrag- 
ed aggregation  of  manhood  dignity,  and  bolstered  it 
with  tenacious  obstancy.  Fred  resumed  his  seat. 
Fred  did  not  conceal  defeat.  His  offer  had  not  been 
expressed  in  words.  His  resolve,  if  he  could  not  pre- 
vent "it,"  "to  see  it  out"  was  equally  as  silent.  Dr. 
Gillette's  leg  hung  tentatively.  The  strange  woman 
caught  her  breath. 

"You  might  introduce  a  fellow,"  John  suggested. 
He  began  to  feel  as  if  he  and  the  strange  woman  had 
been  left  alone,  and  the  others  were  observing  them 
through  glass  walls. 

"Well,"  Dr.  Gillette  held  him  off.  "It  isnt  pre- 
cisely a  social  affair  we  have  in  hand.  It  may  be 
social  elements  will  appear  later,  but  there's  time 
enough  for  ceremony." 

"Are  you  in  the  business?"  John  addressed  the 
woman  with  boyish  openness.  He  was  altogether 
unconscious  of  anything  unusual  about  her.  The 
marks  that  differentiated  her  from  the  great  mass 
of  respectable  women  were  as  unknown  to  his  world 
as  to  Catharine's.  In  him,  however,  she  excited  no 
unaccountable  repulsion.  It  may  be  there  was  not 
such  a  great  divergency  between  this  woman  and 
others.  Later  in  life  Catharine  sometimes  was 
equally  repelled  by  unimpeachable  members  of  her 
sex.     Yet  in  return  for  his  obtuseness,  an  eager 


80  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

gratitude  leaped  into  the  strange  woman's  face,  as  if 
by  choice  he  had  been  the  first  to  yield  her  the  re- 
sults of  her  chance. 

"I  am  half  of  it,"  she  answered. 

Dr.  Gillette  meditatively  lifted  his  foot  and  reach- 
ed it  back  until  the  toe  touched  the  floor  under  the 
table,  then  stretched  it  out  in  front.  "She  is  a  third 
of  it,"  he  corrected  and  went  on,  "This  lady  arrived 
a  few  hours  ago  with  fifty  thousand  to  invest.  She 
is  to  let  me  have  twenty-five  of  it.  We  have  had 
dealings  in  the  past  and  she  considers  it  advisable 
that  we  do  not  entirely  sever  business  relations  as 
long  as  we  are  in  the  vicinity  of  one  another."  Here 
Dr.  Gillette  felt  discomfort  borne  upon  him  straight 
from  the  direction  of  the  woman's  clear  blue  eyes. 
But  there  were  four  directions  in  the  room  and, 
finding  a  comer  where  his  own  eyes  could  rest,  he 
continued  placidly,  "The  other  twenty-five  she  will 
give  to  you  for  a  very  reasonable  security." 

"No,"  she  broke  hastily,  "Dr.  Gillette  takes  all 
or  nothing.  Or  perhaps,"  she  modified,  "in  case  he 
obtains  for  me  elsewhere  the  security  which  I  de- 
mand of  him,  I  might  sign  to  him  certain  transfer- 
able property,  but  to  the  gift  the  open  records  of  the 
county  shall  furnish  evidence  for  all  time.  If  no 
agreement  is  reached,  Mr.  Allen  and  Fred  may  have 
the  fifty  thousand  free  of  obligation.  Neither  Dr. 
Gillette  nor  I  will  have  need  of  money.  For  us,  the 
state  will  provide." 

To  Dr.  Gillette  it  was  as  if  manacles  were  slipped 
around  his  wrists  from  behind,  and  there  was  a 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  81 

moment's  pause  before  they  were  snapped.  "Oh 
well,"  he  retreated  hastily  with  a  distortion  of  his 
long  thin  body,  "Allen,  it  seems  you  are  to  have  it 
all." 

"He  is  a  boy,"  she  protested  drawing  back  at  the 
threshold  of  desire.  "He  shall  not  be  duped.  "It 
would  be  a  fair  deal  with  us." 

"I  guess  not,"  Dr.  Gillette  laughed  seeing  John's 
face  flush.  "Of  course  we  couldn't.  You  seem  to 
think  he  wouldn't  know  how  to  take  care  of  himself 
I  guess  he'd  catch  up  on  us  if  we  tried  any  tricks  of 
deception  on  him." 

"You  could  snare  the  Devil,  himself,  to  make  him 
go  one  better  than  he  meant  to  go,"  she  groaned. 

The  offer  of  something  so  much  better  than  she 
had  resolved  upon  conflicted  with  a  demand  for  re- 
nunciation. And  she  was  not  incapable  of  renun- 
ciation. Blindly  she  had  thrown  away  her  first 
youth  in  profitless  abnegation.  She  was  foolishly 
strong  and  in  return  life  battered  her  weaknesses  till 
they  dragged  her  down.  There  were  moments  of 
heroism  in  her  desolate  young  days;  but  heroism 
without  the  fiber  web  and  woof  of  a  hero,  may  be  the 
beginning  of  destruction.  In  the  plentitude  of  life 
she  bartered  the  future  for  a  thrill  of  holy  joy;  and 
wasted  the  years  that  followed  in  reckless  effort  to 
filch  from  to-day  what  had  been  lost  the  day  before. 
The  impulse  of  sacrifice  rose  within  her,  one  second, 
then  went  down  before  the  hardened  determination 
with  which  she  crossed  the  prairie,  to  destroy  for 
herself  all  hope  or  gain  her  chance  in  the  world, — 


82  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

a  belated  chance,  still  she  was  only  forty.  She  look- 
ed at  the  clean  faced  youth.  Was  not  this  a  better 
chance?  And  she  might  serve  him,  that  too  was  a 
chance.  It  would  not  be  the  armored  struggle  of 
disdain  for  disdain.  In  the  moment  she  made  the 
new  world  for  herself.  That  prescience  which  gives 
the  knowledge  of  what  is  to  come  before  decision 
has  opened  the  way  to  the  movements  of  events, 
told  her  that  it  was  to  be  not  Dr.  Gillette  but  John 
Allen  whose  name  she  was  to  bear ;  that  she  was  to 
live  once  more  the  pains  and  joys  of  emotions,  she 
had  thought  subdued.  She  was  to  bind  and  be 
bound  by  other  laws  than  computations  of  give  and 
receive.  The  shell  of  heartless  calculation  was  too 
small  to  protect.  The  old  law  of  her  being  impelled 
her.  She  was  to  give  of  herself,  find  herself  in  giv- 
ing and  have  the  gift  thrown  back  by  the  lesser  soul. 

"A  woman  would  hardly  trick  a  man  into  marry- 
ing her,"  she  said  with  crude  extravagance  of  inten- 
sity. 

But  the  boy  had  no  acquaintance  with  the  power 
of  reserve  in  histronic  art  and  was  not  offended. 
"Do  you  want  to  marry  me?"  he  laughed  in  amaze- 
ment. 

"  I  want  to  give  you  fifty  thousand  dollars,"  she 
evaded. 

"Who  in  the  deuce,  were  you  going  to  give  them 
to  before  I  came  in?"  he  ventured.  "How  are  you 
carrying  this  fifty  thousand  dollars  about,  I'd  like 
to  know?    Got  it  in  that  lunch  basket,  there?" 

"Shouldn't  wonder!"  Dr.  Gillette  chuckled. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  S3 

"It's  in  New  York  drafts/'  she  replied,  glad  that 
the  question  had  two  parts. 

The  boy  continued  to  look  at  her  exactingly. 

"She  was  going  to  give  it  to  me",  Dr.  Gillette  put 
in  jocosely.  "Lord  knows  why  I  brought  you  in 
here." 

'Stop  lying,  Doc.  Give  us  the  straight  of  it,  Fred," 
John  demanded. 

"Tell  him,  Fred.  Tell  him  the  truth,"  the  woman 
cried. 

Fred  shook  his  head  sardonically. 

The  woman  wet  her  lips.  "Then  I'll  tell  you. 
There  are  tough  characters  in  Rapid,  I'll  wager.  But 
leaving  out  Dr.  Gillette,  there  isn't  one  that  could 
stand  up  to  my  record.  I  came  in  to  buy  a  legal 
name  for  myself, — a  name  and  a  little  more.  The 
man  who  marries  me  must  give  me  every  recogni- 
tion before  the  town  that  any  other  man  must  give 
his  wife.  And  I  shall  do  my  part.  I  am  done  with 
such  men  as  Doc.  Oh!  I'll  help  my  husband  in 
Rapid.  Clear  the  way,  and  I'll  turn  its  own  weapons 
against  the  world,  and  in  addition, — she  laid  a  long 
envelope  on  the  table,  and  sat  waiting  with  her 
hand  upon  it. 

"It  is  a  clear  proposition,  sure,"  John  mused.  He 
felt  the  woman's  desire  turned  toward  him.  He 
thought  of  the  homesteads  along  Rapid  creek  going 
for  a  mere  song,  of  the  new  irrigation  craze  that 
must  prove  feasible  and  make  them  more  to  be  de- 
sired than  Iowa  farms.  Through  it  all  passed  the 
image  of  the  girl  who  had  cast  him  off. 


CHAPTER  VI 


/  /  1^  tO,"  she  maintained,  "it  must  be  a  minis- 
[^  ter  of  the  Gospel."  It  was  to  Dr.  Gil- 
^  ^  lette  she  made  her  demands  and  he, 
abandoning  the  pretense  of  argument  and  grasping 
admiringly  the  wisdom  of  her  far  seeing  precau- 
tions, responded  with  a  growing  terrorized  zeal. 
Fred  had  declined  to  take  part  in  the  transaction, 
but  at  this  point  his  inspiration  broke  through  his 
unmoved  poise. 

"There's  Warner,"  he  laughed. 

"On  your  life,"  and  Dr.  Gillette  was  out  of  his  seat 
as  if  he  had  been  pushed.  John  had  wandered  off 
for  his  delayed  dinner.  And  the  departure  of  Dr. 
Gillette  left  Fred  and  the  strange  woman  together. 
They  looked  at  each  other  as  they  had  done  across 
Catharine  Paine's  sleeping  face  in  the  stage  coach. 

"You  must  have  something  to  eat,"  Fred  said 
humanely. 

"Doc  can  get  it  when  he  comes  back,"  she  ans- 
wered. 

Fred  arose  and  paced  the  floor. 

She  caught  his  eyes  on  one  of  his  backward  turns. 
"If  you  had  been  a  few  inches  taller  and  if  my 

34 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  35 

father  had  found  someone  other  than  his  fourteen 
year  old  daughter  to  drum  the  piano  in  his  dance 
hall — ."  She  turned  her  face  from  the  curious  eyes 
of  a  passer-by  at  the  window. 

Fred's  brow  wrinkled  savagely,  a  disproportion- 
ate lump  of  knots  gathering  on  one  side.  "Oh,  I 
guess  the  devil  had  his  claims  anyhow,"  he  renoun- 
ced all  desire  for  exoneration  with  careless  gruff- 
ness.  But  he  stayed  his  steps  and  laughed  in  that 
strange  ashamedness  at  deviating  from  a  make- 
shift code  of  morals.  "It's  queer,"  he  mused,  "that 
two  such  arch-fiends  as  ourselves  never  connived 
together  and  never  undermined  the  schemes  of  each 
other,-but  at  this  master  stroke  of  yours,  I  have 
half  a  mind  to  squash  it." 

"I'll  hurt  him  no  more  than  you",  she  flared 
wretchedly, — under  her  breath,  for  Dr.  Gillette  was 
ushering  in  the  clergyman. 

The  vocation  of  the  Reverend  Warner  might  be 
inferred  from  the  low  round  cut  of  his  collar  and 
the  high  round  cut  of  his  vest.  He  was  a  short, 
round-faced  Englishman,  skin  weather  browned 
and  face  unshaved  since  the  Sunday  two  days  pass- 
ed. His  brown  eyes  twinkled  in  good  humoured, 
non-committal  indulgence  with  the  frailties  of 
human  nature,  he  had  much  first  hand  acquaint- 
ance. 

"Be  seated,"  Dr.  Gillette  invited  him  hospitably, 
but  without  deference.  In  his  dealings  with  the 
Reverend  Warner,  the  others  ministerial  dignity 
played  no  part.    He  heartily  approved  of  the  clergy- 


86  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

man's  methods  in  evangelical  work.  By  indis- 
criminate acceptance  of  raw  material,  Mr.  Warner 
was  steadily  corralling  an  assortment  of  strays  into 
a  flock.  Content  for  the  change  of  heart  and  even 
the  shedding  of  the  wolf's  skin  to  be  postponed  to  a 
convenient  season,  he  presented  a  scheme  of  salva- 
tion by  gradual  decrease  of  ungodly  practices,  which 
agreed  wonderfully  with  Dr.  Gillette's  conception 
of  divine  expediency.  For  himself.  Dr.  Gillette  did 
not  care  to  be  implicated  in  any  scheme  of  salvation 
however  accommodating,  and  Mr.  Warner  appre- 
ciatively respected  his  aversion.  In  business  mat- 
ters each  of  the  men  found  the  other  readily  able 
to  comprehend  his  view  of  the  reasonable.  Dr. 
Gillette  seated  himself  square  in  his  chair  and  went 
at  the  matter  in  hand  expeditiously.  His  voice  was 
slightly  hoarse  and  nervous.  He  addressed  the  wo- 
man who  turned  from  a  keen  survey  of  Mr.  War- 
ner. 

"Mr.  Warner,  here,  is  an  Episcopal  clergyman, 
ordained  and  salaried.  He  has  all  the  requisites 
for  his  vocation  except  a  congregation  and  a  build- 
ing to  house  it,  and  he  is  getting  together  the  stuff 
for  both  at  a  fairly  good  rate.  When  the  subscrip- 
ion  list  for  the  church  is  well  under  way,  very  likely 
you  would  add  your  own  and  Mr.  Allen's  name 
for  such  amounts  as — ." 

"It  might  be  you  both  would  be  drawn  to  join 
yourselves  to  the  congregation  of  the  Lord,"  Mr. 
Warner  interposed.  An  unassumed  seriousness  in 
his  face  and  voice  struck  a  cord  of  response  in  the 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  37 

woman,  revealed  an  opening  in  his  creed  whereby 
one  need  not  commit  himself  too  far,  yet  just  so 
far  as  his  daily  peace  craved,  might  be  associated 
with  those  joined  together  for  the  purpose  of  good 
works  and  chastening  thoughts. 

Whether  it  was  an  impulse  of  sport  toward  this 
turn  of  the  interview  or  merely  a  desire  to  drive 
some  part  of  his  designs  to  a  point  of  actual  agree- 
ment was  not  evident.  Dr.  Gillette,  ignoring  tne 
interruption,  demanded,  "In  case  Mr.  Warner  mar- 
ries you  and  John  Allen,  you  will  hardly  be  content 
with  a  normal  fee?" 

"When  we  can  be  more  privately  situated,"  the 
strange  woman  answered,  "I  shall  be  glad  to  give 
Mr.  Warner  a  thousand  dollars  to  be  used  absolute- 
ly at  his  discretion,  in  putting  through  his  plans  for 
his  church.  As  for  the  marriage  fee — "  She  waved 
it  off  with  grim  humour.  "It  is  hardly  for  me  to 
pay  the  marriage  fee." 


CHAPTER  VII 


DR  Gillette  afterward  declared,  with  a  modi- 
fying phraesology  of  his  own,  that  it  was 
through  a  trick  of  Mr.  Warner  by  which  he 
took  on  sanctity  and  radiated  churchiness  forthwith 
upon  assuming  the  surplice,  that,  at  the  clinch- 
ing of  this  transaction,  the  participants  and 
and  the  witnesses  found  themselves  transposed 
the  scoffing  traffic  of  the  market  place  to  a 
hushed  holy  of  holies.  No  slip  of  levity  dis- 
pelled the  grave  silence  with  which  he  con- 
ducted them  into  his  sanctuary.  It  was  a  small 
hall  over  Pete's  saloon.  They  entered  it  in  the 
darkness  of  early  evening.  Mrs.  Warner  opened  the 
door  just  as  they  reached  it,  and  the  party  of  five 
entered,  and  four  of  its  members  stood  awkward 
and  embarrassed.  Even  Dr.  Gillette  was  ill  at  ease. 
Mr.  Warner's  bustling  little  wife  had  been  busy 
transferring  such  part  of  her  household  furnishings 
as  could  be  suitably  placed ;  and  across  the  Brussels 
rug,  the  chanceled  end  of  the  room  presented  itself 
to  these  defilers,  very  simple  and  suggestive  in  the 
softened  light  of  a  shaded  piano  lamp.  There  was 
the  pine  railing,  pathetically  crude  in  day  time,  but 

88 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  39 

to  them,  in  the  mellowed  brightness,  the  intimation 
of  an  unknown  barrier.  From  the  altar  with  its 
embroidered  cloth  and  candles,  and  from  the  great 
Bible  out  of  which  the  long  mark  fell  in  stately 
fashion,  emanated  some  of  that  reverence  that  has 
been  gathered  into  them  in  the  centuries  when  if 
men  approached  them  wantonly,  they  did  not  own  it 
even  to  themselves.  Mrs.  Warner  greeted  the  bridal 
party,  then  drew  back, — a  modest  hand  maid  to 
the  occasion.  And  the  man  and  woman  found 
themselves  at  the  altar.  However  Mr.  Warner 
may  have  dealt  with  the  divine  spirit  of  his  own 
soul  which  God  gave  into  his  keeping,  the  ritual, 
which  the  Church  intrusted  to  his  care,  he  never 
debased.  It  ever  took  hold  of  him  with  a  dignity 
of  its  own.  There  also  that  ceremony,  to  which  gen- 
erations have  bequeathed  their  heritage  of 
deep  emotion,  laid  its  awe  upon  them  who  had  come 
to  it  so  lightly.  At  Mr.  Warner's  word  they  knelt; 
and,  in  an  instant  of  dazed  wonderment  at  the 
solemnity  that  encompassed  them  and  their  deed, 
they  kissed, — and  then  drew  back  in  a  kind  of 
terror  at  the  strangeness  of  the  touch.  She  was 
frightened  for  the  boy,  he  for  himself,  when  in  the 
very  tone  of  God's  agent  and  with  the  gravity  of 
binding  the  indissoluble,  the  Reverend  Warner  pro- 
nounced them  man  and  wife. 

Before  they  could  escape  Mrs.  Warner  came  for- 
ward and  in  turn  shook  the  hand  of  everyone  en- 
thusiastically; and  by  an  imperious  little  touch  of 
the  arm  for  one,  and  an  imperious  motion  of  the 


40  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

head  for  another,  gathered  them  cozily  uncomfort- 
able in  the  small  parlor  at  the  rear  of  the  Church ; 
where,  insistently,  with  felicitous  intimation  of  the 
past  and  present,  obstantly  adhering  to  the  hypo- 
thesis of  an  invariable  element,  present  in  variable 
proportions  in  every  such  a  situation,  in 
the  spirit  of  proper  rejoicing,  she  fed  them 
on  very  thin  cakes  and  coffee  to  be  taken 
from  very  thin  small  cups.  Dr.  Gillette  threw  off 
the  effects  of  what  he  called  "Warner's  incantation" 
and  became  jovially  congratulatory.  Fred,  solemn, 
and  painfully  wrinkled,  put  down  his  full  cup  and 
untasted  cake,  excused  himself  with  the  candid  as- 
sertion that  he  must  meet  an  engagement  for  a 
game  of  monte,  and  withdrew.  However,  Dr.  Gil- 
lette, following  to  "Pete's,"  the  rendez-vous  that 
was  always  understood  when  no  other  had  been 
named,  failed  to  find  him ;  nor  did  he  appear  during 
the  entire  evening. 

When  John  and  Mrs.  Allen  came  out  upon  the 
street  together,  they  turned  and  walked  aimlessly 
away  from  the  lighted  windows.  They  were  like 
two  robbers  carrying  off  plunder;  having  brought 
themselves  out  of  danger,  each  suddenly  becomes 
filled  with  uncertainty  of  the  other,  yet  is  held  to 
him  by  a  pledge  of  constancy,  and  the  bond  of  half- 
repented  comradeship.  From  the  shadow  of  the 
low  buildings,  they  came  into  the  open  moonlight. 
His  face  was  turned  from  her  lest  the  slightest  in- 
clination be  taken  for  a  concession  that  was  careful- 
ly withheld.    By  pampering  a  mood  of  dull  disgust 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  41 

in  the  situation,  he  seemed  to  be  making  himself 
an  unchosen  part  of  it.  His  companion  stopped  and 
held  him  at  the  muzzle  of  his  deed. 

"Where  are  we  going?"  she  asked. 

At  the  abrupt  pause,  he  unconsciously  stopped 
also.  Perforce  they  looked  at  each  other  and  from 
her  face  the  actuality  of  their  new  relation  went 
out  and  gripped  him. 

"I  have  a  shack,"  he  began.  The  thought  of  it 
had  risen  to  her  demand.  Yet  he  did  not  voluntari- 
ly hand  it  over  to  the  emergency.  "Fred  and  I 
bunked  there,"  he  concluded. 

"Is  it  this  way,"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  he  answered ;  and  they  walked  on. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


MILDRED  ran  up  the  steps  of  the  hotel,  hur- 
ried through  the  uncarpeted  hall,  and 
burst  into  the  room  where  she  and  Catha- 
rine lived.  Her  body  bent  forward  and  swayed 
sideways  a  little  on  the  stairs.  Still  hastening,  she 
had  turned  at  the  first  landing,  to  call  back  to  a  man 
below.  When  she  opened  the  door  her  cheeks  were 
flushed  with  health  and  flurry. 

In  staid  disregard  of  the  Sabbath,  Catharine  was 
darning  her  father's  socks.  After  the  old  fashioned 
method,  she  used  no  ball  but  held  the  emptiness 
smoothly  unstretched  between  the  thumb  and  first 
finger  of  her  left  hand.  However,  her  cotton  had 
the  silk  gloss;  and  she  was  just  considering  that  the 
inserted  portion  was  of  superior  quality  to  the  orig- 
inal material,  when  Mildred's  approach  began  to 
make  its  rather  premature  demand  upon  her  atten- 
tion. Having  an  acute  hearing,  she  followed  it 
from  the  entrance  of  the  vestibule  till  her  compan- 
ion stood  before  her.  Something  like  resentment 
stirred  with  the  nearing  steps.  It  was  an  irritation 
that  brought  dissatisfaction  with  self.  To  Mildred, 
she  had  reached  out  for  a  realization  of  her  seven- 


42 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  43 

teen-year-old  anticipation  of  friendship-love.  But 
with  Mildred  the  delights  of  youth  were  only  the 
plays  of  childhood  with  the  glamour  of  imaginative 
imitation  replaced  by  a  certain  mature  design.  Sit- 
ting alone,  her  eyes  on  the  hills,  Catharine  was  con- 
tent with  the  dr^am-assurance  of  the  time  when 
human  eyes  should  look  back  at  her  as  she  looked  at 
the  mountains.  But  the  announcement  of  Mildred's 
arrival  insinuated  the  vague  fear  that  it  was  not 
in  her  to  find  the  response  of  her  longing.  "Was  it 
for  some  trivial  reason  that  she  did  not  love  Mil- 
dred?" the  desire  of  her  nature  was  asking.  She 
did  not  come  of  a  stock  that  curtailed  the  list  of  its 
dear  ones  because  of  an  unseemly  volume  of  voice 
or  a  laxity  of  muscular  control.  Her  mother  prac- 
ticed Christianity  as  she  practiced  darning,  follow- 
ing obsoletely  difficult  and  exact  standards  irres- 
pective of  the  material  upon  which  applied.  Her 
father  had  picked  his  trust-worthy  friends  from  the 
sturdy  muscled,  restless,  spirited  men  that  ever 
seek  the  frontier  line.  She  looked  up  at  Mildred 
wistfully. 

"Haven't  you  heard?"  Mildred  exclaimed  in  the 
open  doorway.  "Aren't  you  going  to  the  Sunday- 
school?" 

"Sunday  school?    Where?"  Catharine  answered. 

Mildred  came  in  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the 
bed,  laughing  and  endeavoring  to  get  her  breath, 
leaned  back  on  one  hand  and  caught  her  chest  with 
the  other.  "You  heathen,"  she  commented,  "Darn- 
ing on  Sunday!  You  missed  it  not  being  outside. 


44  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

There  was  a  dreadful  stampede  of  cattle  up  the 
street.  They  were  milling  right  in  front  of  the 
post-office.  Bobbie  Doone  almost  got  ground  up. 
Guess  he  would  have,  only  he  knew  his  bronco.  But, 
come  on.  Mr.  Warner  is  waiting.  He  has  a  church 
up  over  the  saloon.  That  woman  that  came  in  on 
the  coach  with  us  is  all  right.  She's  married  to 
Mr.  Allen.  He's  that  dandy  young  fellow  with  the 
thick  hair  and  the  red  tie  that  we  saw  with  Doc 
Gillette  in  at  the  Chinaman's,  night  before  last.  I 
don't  see  what  he  wanted  to  marry  for  just  as  we 
came  in.  Well, — Mrs.  Allen,  she  is  now,  whoever 
she  was  before,  and  Mrs.  Warner  are  rounding  up 
the  children.  We'll  go  halves  on  the  primary  class. 
You  can  have  the  girls.    I'll  take  the  boys." 

Catharine  threw  her  work  on  the  bed  and  five 
minutes  later  they  were  going  down  the  stairs  arm 
in  arm ;  and,  in  another  two,  had  joined  Mrs.  Allen 
and  Mrs.  Warner  at  the  foot  of  the  steps  on  the 
other  side  of  the  street.  There,  by  a  system  of  nods 
and  pats,  eight  or  nine  non-descript  children  were 
being  herded  into  the  passage  way.  Catharine 
caught  two  lights  of  wonderment  set  in  a  fair 
freckled  face,  swung  a  clean  washed  bunch  of  baby 
flesh  to  her  shoulder  and  went  ahead. 

Mrs.  Warner  stretched  her  pastor-wife  tentacles 
in  the  direction  of  Mildred.  "We  shall  depend  on 
you  girls.  A  young  girl  has  more  influence  than 
she  thinks — Harry  help  your  sister.  There  that's 
a  little  man — "      Setting  a  stumbling  impediment 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  46 

to  the  procession  on  its  feet,  she  continued.  "We 
shall  be  real  merry  together,  also.  I  believe  in  a 
good  time  as  does  Mr.  Warner." 

"So  do  I,"  Mildred  answered  impressively  with 
the  air  of  grasping  a  novel  sentiment. 
^  Mrs.  Warner  was  a  small  dark  woman,  dressed 
neither  in  style  nor  out  of  it.  She  was  one  of  the 
most  zealous  Martha's  in  the  service  of  the  Lord. 
How  she  sorted  and  seated  and  arranged  that  Sun- 
day-school; played  the  organ,  started  the  songs, 
brought  forth  Bibles,  pamphlets,  and  little  picture 
cards ;  moved  chairs,  tables,  and  the  small  pawns  of 
flesh  and  blood  first  this  way  and  then  that,  bring- 
ing each  into  orderly  relation  to  herself,  the  cen- 
tral point.  Incidentally  she  instructed  Mildred  in 
what  was  unique  in  the  instruction  in  an  Episcopal 
Sunday  school ;  and  discreetly  as  if  sliding  over  the 
perfectly  familiar,  made  hurried  but  very  definite 
suggestions  to  Mrs.  Allen.  Both  the  woman  and 
the  girl  proved  wonderfully  adaptable.  One  learn- 
ed many  things  to  appear  thence  forth  as  if  she  had 
always  known  them;  the  other  conformed  to  ex- 
ample without  learning  anything.  Catharine  in 
her  corner,  put  aside  the  lesson  sheet  and  told  the 
story  of  Joseph  and  his  wicked,  jealous  brothers; 
and  at  the  end  forgot  the  moral. 

"Charmingly  original!"  Mrs.  Warner  commented 
concerning  her  to  Mrs.  Allen  when  the  hour  was 
over  and  she  had  departed  escorting  three  children 
to  their  homes.  Later  Mrs.  Allen  caught  up  with 
her  just  outside  the  door  opening  into  the  street. 


46  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

She  had  returned  for  a  small  stray  and  was  leaving 
a  second  time.  With  the  child  between  them,  they 
passed  the  saloon  where  John,  Fred,  Dr.  Gillette 
and  half  a  dozen  other  men  lounged  in  the  doorway. 
It  was  those  in  the  dark  as  to  the  facts  who  were 
making  efforts  at  sport  over  John's  recent  mar- 
riage. Dr.  Gillette  grinned  encouragingly  but  held 
his  tongue.  Fred  sank  into  his  comer.  John  bare- 
ly succeeded  in  hiding  his  mounting  rage,  beneath  a 
glum  silence.  The  jests  as  to  Dr.  Gillette's  part 
were  according  to  the  standards  of  the  speakers 
not  uncomplimentary  but  for  John  there  was  the 
most  humiliating  of  all  implications,  that  of  having 
been  duped.  The  insinuations  were  too  remotely 
phrased  to  occasion  physical  attack  from  one  not 
quick  of  wit  in  retaliatory  retort.  Even  as  a  boy 
moreover,  John  never  fought  out  his  anger.  In  the 
pause  when  rancor  vitalizes  into  pugilistic  energy 
at  the  end  of  the  knuckles,  occasion  had  ever  opened 
to  him  a  more  assuredly  comfortable  return  to  self 
esteem,  brought  a  momentary  discountenancing  of 
his  adversaries  which  left  him  with  an  afterglow 
of  unperturbed  dignity.  It  was  in  this  pause  that 
Mrs.  Allen  and  Catharine  Paine  passed.  The  ap- 
pearance of  Mrs.  Allen  heightened  the  significance 
of  all  that  was  implicit  in  the  moment.  Mrs.  Allen 
felt  herself  the  fulcrum  of  jeering  amusement  and 
unbalanced  tempers,  the  subject  of  mocking  scru- 
tiny. As  a  shield,  itself  invulnerable  to  scar,  that 
might  glance  aside  their  contempt,  she  detained 
Catharine  over  a  matter  of  little  moment,  bent  and 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  47 

retied  the  bonnet  of  the  child  whose  hand  Catharine 
held.  Before  Dr.  Gillette,  Fred,  and  John,  she 
demonstrated  a  point  of  common  interest  between 
herself  and  Mose  Paine's  daughter.  She  did  not 
flaunt  a  spurious  friendship.  She  only  made  evi- 
dent that  they  had  met  and  found  one  another  ac- 
ceptable. When  the  child's  bonnet  was  adjusted, 
Catharine  said  "good-morning"  the  least  bit  curtly; 
and  crossed  the  street,  displeased,  she  knew  not 
why.  She  had  looked  for  a  wild,  honest,  blatant 
wickedness  at  the  end  of  the  stage-coach  journey. 
But  the  puzzle  of  those  grown  wise  in  the  old  wise 
world  had  followed  the  young  girl  into  the  new 
land.  She  looked  down  the  broad  empty  street, 
through  the  gap  off  to  the  mountain  piled  blue  upon 
blue  then  down  at  the  round  face  all  unfrightened 
and  confiding.  At  her  glance,  a  burden  of  commu- 
nication poured  all  at  once  into  a  chatter  of  incom- 
prehensible words.  Then  just  below  her  own  face 
and  above  the  little  one,  Fred  Tyler's  greeted  her; 
and  behind  the  pain  of  his  wrinkles,  she  saw  the 
message  from  the  mountains  and  from  the  bady 
voice  transcribed  into  a  winning  sadness. 

"You  should  have  been  to  our  Sunday  school,  Mr. 
Tyler,"  she  said. 

"Sunday  school?"  he  mused.  "No,  I  could  not 
attend  your  Sunday  school.  I  could  not  endure  the 
sacrilege  of  being  there." 

When  Catharine  left  her,  Mrs.  Allen  stood  at  the 
corner  and  did  not  lift  her  eyes.  She  was  not  imme- 
diately before  them  but  oould  be  plainly  seen  by  the 


48  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

group  in  front  of  the  saloon.  If  she  had  challenged 
him  there  before  them  all,  John  Allen  would  have 
disowned  her;  but  a  chastened  yearning  turned  her 
head  away,  while  she  waited  and  the  tensity  of  her 
craving  soared  up  to  the  faith  of  prayer.  In  John 
Allen  the  manly  tenderness  that  can  swell  within 
a  boyish  egotism,  answered  to  her  need.  He 
straightened  himself  and  stepped  out  from  those 
who  derided  him;  touched  his  hat,  prefunctorily 
courteous,  and  was  at  the  side  of  the  woman  who 
was  his  wife.  Indeed  a  touch  of  high  souled  chival- 
ry exalted  the  act  and  the  silence  upon  which  it 
rested.  One  glance  back  at  the  baffled  smiles  of 
his  tormentors,  and  one  at  the  gladness  quivering  in 
the  woman's  face, — the  sensations  with  which  he 
walked  away  were  predominately  pleasant,  so  much 
so  that  it  was  a  moment  he  never  forgot  and  he  al- 
ways recalled  it  as  one  of  unadulterated  generosity. 


CHAPTER  IX 


^  ^  T^ATHER?"  Catharine  came  up  to  him  in 
r^  the  midst  of  the  wagons  and  the  buffalo 
skins  scattered  on  the  ground.  "I  want 
to  go  back  with  the  train",  she  announced. 

Mose  Paine  ignored  the  interruption  and  conti- 
nued to  shake  out  the  hides.  Having  arranged  them 
at  the  end  of  the  nearest  wagon  bed,  he  began  to 
pack  and  after  a  space  also  to  give  voice  to  his  an- 
noyances. 

"I  wish  you'd  tell  me,  Catharine,  what's  been 
the  gain  of  your  staying  here  for  a  month,"  he 
demanded. 

"It'll  be  two  months  since  I  left  when  I  get  home," 
Catharine  corrected.    "I  am  glad  I  came,  father." 

He  bent  down  and  dragged  the  entire  mass  of 
skins  nearer  the  wagon ;  then  in  the  fretted  discom- 
fort of  the  exertion,  addressed  her  accusingly,  "You 
don't  know  what  it  means  to  cross  the  prairie  in  a 
freight  train.  There's  the  weather  and  the  Indians. 
You  won't  have  anything  to  eat  but  beans  and  bacon 
and  biscuit.  The  fords  are  high.  The  men  swear 
and  curse  if  they  want  to." 

"You'll  be  there,"  she  threw  in. 


49 


50  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"It  may  take  thirty  days.  Your  mother'Il  be 
anxious,"  he  continued  not  heeding  her. 

"Father,  you  know,  unloaded  going  back,  it  takes 
no  time  at  all.  Mother  worries  about  you.  She 
won't  know  I'm  coming  until  I  arrive." 

There  were  times  when  the  man  almost  repented 
Catharine's  existence.  Now  was  one  of  them.  When 
she  should  have  been  at  home  nursing  the  younger 
children,  baking  and  dusting  against  the  time  of 
his  arrival,  she  was  asking  to  go  back  with  the  train. 

"Mother  crossed  from  Colorado  when  I  was  a 
baby,"  she  said. 

"I  never  wanted  you  to  come,  Catharine,  he  per- 
sisted irreverently. 

"Then  you  don't  want  me  to  stay,"  she  pressed 
with  sound  logic.  - 

He  smoothed  another  skin  methodically  precise. 
There  was  no  freighter  in  the  West  that  could  get 
more  goods  into  a  given  compass  than  Mose  Paine 
and  from  habit  he  was  economical  of  space  although 
there  were  ten  unloaded  wagons  for  a  few  dozen 
hides.    Catharine  watched  him  quietly. 

"I  could  do  it  faster,  father,"  she  mildly  remarked. 

"Faster!  I  guess  you  could!"  He  missed  thfc 
humour  and  the  smile  that  brightened  her  face.  An 
amusingly  pathetic  bit  of  hurt  indignation  was  in 
his  tone. 

"I  suppose  you  must  be  taken  back  some  way." 
He  spoke  as  if  she  were  a  cumbersome  article  of 
freight  inflicted  upon  him.  She  was  standing  on  a 
skin  and  with  unconscious  perverseness,  his  hand 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  51 

passing  over  several  nearer  ones  reached  for  it,  and 
he  waited  in  abused  resignation  till  she  stepped 
back. 

"Why  don't  he  say  'yes*  or  *no*  she  was  question- 
ing. Then  it  occured  to  her  that  it  might  be  'no'  and 
laughing  inwardly  at  the  effect  of  the  possibility, 
she  condoned  his  non-committal  antagonism. 

"Then,  father,  I  shall  find  out  what  I  need,  and 
equip  myself,"  she  stated  moving  away. 

He  lifted  worried  eyes  to  her,  but  she  was  gone. 

But  for  Mr.  Paine  there  were  compensations  in 
Catharine  although  he  never  recognized  them  for 
such.  That  evening  when  she  came  into  the  poorly 
lighted  dining-room  of  the  American  House,  he 
caught  the  admiration  that  followed  her  as  Catha- 
rine herself  did  not  catch  it.  He  furtively  observed 
her  take  her  seat,  rested  in  the  assurance  that  she 
was  a  girl  who  required  no  looking  after  and  smiled 
upon  her  benignly.  She  began  to  talk  of  her  pre- 
parations for  the  overland  journey  and  his  expres- 
sion of  complaisant  satisfaction  was  changed  to  one 
of  annoyance.  Yet  in  the  morning  she  discovered 
that  all  was  arranged  for  her  accommodation  and 
comfort;  a  private  apartment  was  ingeniously  fitted 
out  in  one  of  the  empty  wagons,  and  for  diversion 
between  walking,  and  snail  pace  riding  in  wagons, 
a  bronco  of  comparatively  reputable  character  had 
been  added  to  the  mules  and  oxen  of  the  train. 

"Father,"  she  thanked  him  touching  his  arm 
timidly,  "if  you  seemed  to  care  to  do  it  and  for  me !" 

He  shook  her  off  briskly,  and  she  put  her  arms 
around  the  neck  of  the  bronco. 


BOOK  TWO 


CHAPTER  I 


r  /  |-^USTED,  Miss?" 

I    I     The  porter  poised  his  brush  solicitous- 
•*-^      ly  and  Catharine  arose. 

"Mighty  ner'  ther'  now,"  the  darkie  volunteered. 
"We  take  water  and  coal  her',  and  then  run  right  up 
to  Rapid.  Reckon  you're  glad  to  get  home.  E'er 
been  her*  'fore?" 

Catharine  nodded,  smiled,  shook  her  head,  and 
dropped  a  twenty-five  cent  piece  into  his  receptive 
palm ;  then  sank  down  in  the  sfeat,  put  her  elbows  on 
the  sill  and  looked  out  the  car  window.  She  was 
awed  and  thrilled  with  the  monstrous  bleakness  of 
the  prairie.  On  either  side  it  stretched  back  in  an 
endless  succession  of  draws  and  low  rolling  eleva- 
tions. Here  and  there  was  a  deserted  ranch  house, 
a  colorless  skeleton  of  a  living  place,  or  a  few  whit- 
ened bones  and  a  dingy  hide  told  where  a  coyote  and 
a  cow  had  struggled  and  one  had  fallen.  But  each 
token  of  life  was  swallowed  up  into  a  single  tremen- 
dous suggestion  of  passive  strength.  Before  her 
where  the  prairie  sweep  would  have  touched  the 
horizon,  the  Black  Hills  rose  above  it  almost  as  dark 
as  the  name  that  has  been  given  them. 

Henry  Burton,  across  the  isle  came  over  to  the 

65 


56  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

seat  opposite  her.  She  turned  from  the  window  and 
waited  for  him  to  speak  but  he  hesitated  before  the 
expectancy  in  her  face.  He  was  a  tall,  fair  man 
with  all  the  symmetry  in  face  and  figure  that  Catha- 
rine lacked.  Leaning  forward  slightly,  his  arm 
on  his  knee,  his  large  blue  eyes  looked  openly  into 
hers  and  the  smile  on  his  lips  pleasantly  anticipated 
whatever  she  might  say. 

Two  days  before  at  Missouri  Valley,  they  found 
themselves  the  only  occupants  of  the  Pullman,  and 
the  conductor,  standing  in  the  aisle  between,  made 
known  that  Rapid  was  the  destination  of  each. 

"We  are  a  select  company,"  Catharine  ventured 
when  the  conductor  had  passed  on.  "The  best  of 
everything  is  going  toward  Rapid." 

Henry  Burton  laid  down  the  Chicago  Record 
Herald  and  asked  the  privilege  of  sharing  her  seat. 
"I  didn't  know  it,"  he  said.  "I  only  knew  that  it 
contained  a  State  School  of  Mines  and  that  I  was 
to  be  the  professor  of  assaying." 

They  then  discovered  that  he  was  an  A.  M.  from 
Columbia  and  she  was  freshly  graduated  from 
Vassar.  They  began  with  remarks  on  the  respec- 
tive campuses,  touched  upon  college  sports,  songs 
common  friends,  the  latest  comic  opera  and  favo- 
rites of  the  stage;  and  the  evening  before  reached 
their  covertly  cherished  expectations  of  the  new  life 
and  talked  of  the  town  to  whose  making  their  own 
young  vitality  was  to  contribute.  Catharine  knew 
all  about  it.  She  had  not  been  back  since  she  came 
home  with  the  train.    But  for  the  last  three*  years 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  57 

all  the  letters  from  mother,  father,  and  little  brother 
and  sister  had  come  from  Rapid.  The  Journal  had 
been  sent  and  photographs  of  each  new  building. 
That  short  visit  six  years  ago  had  given  the  basis 
for  working  out  just  how  the  town  was  built,  and 
where  each  building  was  situated.  There  was  no- 
thing she  could  not  tell  him  about  it  and  its  people. 
The  girl  had  loved  college  and  would  not  yield  the 
memory  of  its  wholesome  frolics  and  its  heritage 
of  friendship  love.  But  she  would  not  have  it  pro- 
longed to  the  exclusion  of  the  sequel  that  should 
succeed.  At  the  end  of  the  long  day  of  travel  the  man 
had  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  homely  yearnings  of  the 
girl  who  had  been  called  a  "shark"  at  college.  Her 
mother  and  the  children  had  "come  on"  for  the  sum- 
mers and  they  spent  the  vacations  together  in  the 
East,  but  for  them  in  the  home  in  Rapid, — she  would 
make  no  effort  to  put  its  meaning  into  words.  Yet, 
for  himself,  she  warned  the  man  against  disappoint- 
ment. He  must  not  judge  the  town  from  a  stand- 
point of  intrinsic  valuation,  for  the  present  attain- 
ment was  only  a  promise  of  the  future.  Making 
light  of  her  credulity,  he  incited  her  to  equip  a 
dwelling  place  for  his  own  hopes,  and  she  was  equal 
to  the  hint  of  encouragement  in  his  feigned  mock- 
cry.  If  he  did  his  part,  the  School  of  Mines  would 
give  scope  to  his  utmost  ability,  and  in  the  proper 
garb  of  allusive  phraesology,  she  had  dared  the  in- 
ference that  he  would  command  the  greatest  oppor- 
tunity the  school  might  offer. 

"Impossible!"  he  had  turned  the  flattery  against 


58  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

her  teasingly. 

"You  are  still  undaunted?"  he  asked  as  they  sat 
facing  each  other  waiting  for  Rapid  to  appear. 
"Such  a  dreary  nothingness." 

"Such  a  sublime  approach!"  she  retorted.  "Per- 
haps this  is  more  to  your  taste?"  The  train  had 
slowed  and  a  round  red  water  tank  cut  them  off 
from  the  prairie  behind  and  the  town  before.  "The 
School  of  Mines!"  she  exclaimed  nodding  back  to- 
ward two  brick  buildings.  They  were  good  sized, 
substantial  structures,  gauntly  unadorned,  without 
trees,  grass,  or  walks  around  them. 

"They  are  large,"  he  laughed,  "but  where  did 
they  come  from?  Where  are  they  put?  Did  they 
drop  there,  like  meteoric  stones?  They  lack  envi- 
ronment." 

"The  Park  Hotel  is  neighborly  unless  one  has  my- 
opic vision  or  impeded  gait,"  her  answer  came 
quickly.  By  turning  his  back  to  her  and  leaning 
his  face  against  the  glass,  he  succeeded  in  seeing 
the  wing  of  another  ostentatious  brick  building  half 
a  mile  in  the  direction  of  Rapid.  "It  is  opposite  the 
station,"  she  informed  him. 

"The  station,  one  would  expect  to  have  some  prox- 
imity to  the  town,"  was  his  complaint. 

"You  have  no  imagination.  The  town  would  grow 
over  it  and  we'd  be  moving  it  out  every  year.  The 
use  of  the  we  excluded  him.  She  was  tingling  with 
the  home  coming  joy ;  and  at  the  end  of  the  journey, 
was  preoccupied.  The  nearness  of  Rapid  filled  her 
80  completely  that  there  was  no  place  for  the  Inti- 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  59 

macy  that  had  been  drawing  them  the  day  before. 

"But  you  admitted  yesterday  that  in  the  other 
visit  to  Rapid  you  were  disappointed  in  the  West," 
he  challenged. 

"Surely  not!"  she  answered  thoughtfully. 

"Yes,"  he  maintained,  as  if  reminding  her. 

"Oh !  But  there  I  was  looking  for  the  wrong  thing. 
Can  grape  vines  flourish  in  gold-mixed  sand?  Do 
Kantian  theories  formulate  between  the  plunges  of 
an  unbroken  bronco?  It  was  because  I' found  so 
much  that  I  lamented  because  I  was  not  altogether 
satisfied." 

At  that  point  the  train  lurched,  then  stopped 
again  for  coal.  Sounds  of  a  commotion  intruded 
upon  the  conversation. 

"You're  right  she  is,"  the  porter  was  saying. 
"This  way  young  man." 

Catharine  stood  up  unheeding  that  her  purse  and 
handkerchief  dropped  to  the  floor.  A  boy  of  twelve 
and  a  girl  of  ten  rushed  down  the  aisle  and  the  tall 
girl  knelt  between  them. 

"Walter  you  are  spoiling  Kitty's  hat,"  the  girl 
child  pushed  her  brother  away  with  her  elbow  and 
her  small  fingers  reverently  adjusted  the  dislocated 
aigrette  of  Catharine's  turban.  The  boy  thus  re- 
lieved from  further  demonstration  of  greeting,  an- 
nounced, "We've  got  to  get  out  of  here  double  quick. 
Our  cart  is  outside." 
Margie  nestled  closer  to  her  sister. 
"Perhaps  you  will  drive  back  to  the  station  alone," 
Catharine  suggested  to  Walter. 


60  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"Most  assuredly,"  he  consented  expeditiously, 
standing  very  short  and  slight  in  his  white  starched 
waist  with  its  wide  collar  and  red  tie.  Turning,  he 
hastened  down  the  aisle,  restraining  himself  with 
difficulty  from  a  run.  Margie  fitted  cozily  against 
Catharine's  arm  and  timidly  submitted  to  an  intro- 
duction to  Henry  Burton. 


CHAPTER  II 


TWO  days  later  Henry  called  at  the  Paine  resi- 
dence and  was  investigated  by  the  mascu- 
line members  of  the  household.  Walter  met 
him  at  the  door  and  conducted  him  through 
a  succession  of  rooms,  that  were  differentiated  only 
by  a  diversity  in  carpeting  and  wall  paper,  and 
brought  him  at  last  to  an  evident  terminus.  A  pine 
wood  fire  blazed  in  the  fireplace,  a  book  of  poems 
lay  face  down  on  a  chair  and  music  rested  on  the 
open  piano.  A  palm  stood  in  a  windowed  alcove.  An 
inviting  air  of  welcome  had  been  added,  and  Henry 
realized  a  degree  of  opulence  in  the  furnishings. 
Walter  instructed  him  as  to  the  most  comfortable 
chair,  and  selected  a  hassock  for  his  small  person. 

"Kitty  says  this  is  her  room.  You  came  to  see 
Kitty  didn't  you?"  Henry  nodded  and  the  boy  took 
up  another  line  of  conversation.  "Do  you  like  that 
bronc,  you've  bought?" 

"How  do  you  know  I've  bought  a  bronc?"  Henry 
smiled  leaning  forward  his  hand  on  his  knee.  It 
was  a  mannerism  with  him,  that  often  accompanied 
a  quizzical  expression. 

"Oh,  I  thought  I  saw  you  on  that  one  Jim  Hale 
owned." 


61 


62  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"Well,  I  did  purchase  it,"  Mr.  Burton  admitted. 

"You  want  to  look  out  for  those  broncs,"  the  boy 
admonished.  "They're  tricky.  You'll  go  along  a  week 
or  so,  may  be,  nice  as  you  please,  then  in  a  jiffy, 
they're  balking,  kicking  up,  rolling  over,  up  to  any 
old  deviltry." 

Mr.  Burton  enjoyed  the  last  word  from  the  pretty 
lips  above  the  immaculate  white  waist. 

"How  does  our  gas  strike  you?"  was  the  next 
question. 

"Looks  to  me  about  the  same  as  any  other  gas," 
and  he  observed  the  chandelier  seriously.  His  mirth 
was  modified  by  the  sudden  thought  of  a  kerosene 
affliction  in  his  own  room  at  the  Harney  hotel. 

"Well,  now  that's  just  where  you're  off,"  Walter 
caught  him  up  gleefully.  "There  isn't  any  other  gas 
in  town.  Dick  Fulton,  right  across  the  road,  hadn't 
ever  seen  gas  till  we  lighted  up.  We  make  it  our- 
selves or  we  put  the  stuff  in  and  the  machine  does 
the  work.  Kitty  don't  approve  of  it.  She  says  it's 
stealing  a  march  on  the  prosperity  of  the  town. 
Say — don't  you  think  Kitty's  a  dandy?" 

Henry  lowered  his  voice.  It  was  full  of  fun  and 
music,    "Between  you  and  me,  I  do,"  he  answered. 

Just  here  Mr.  Paine  cautiously  put  his  head 
around  the  portiere.  Mr.  Burton  turned  with  the 
consciousness  of  a  third  person's  presence,  and  arose 
quickly.  Mr.  Paine  came  forward,  shook  his  hand 
with  heartiness  at  the  same  time  revealing  com- 
plete ignorance  as  to  his  identity.  He  took  a  seat 
and  began  with  mild  directness,  to  put  to  him  lead- 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  (» 

ing  questions  as  to  his  business  in  Rapid.  Having 
got  his  guest  "placed"  he  proceeded  to  a  dissertation 
upon  the  prospects  of  Rapid.  'Til  tell  you  what, 
young  man,  I  watched  the  beginning  of  Denver. 
Rapid  has  exactly  the  corresponding  position.  These 
people  don't  know  what  Rapid  is  going  to  be.  You've 
got  a  good  thing  there.  Plenty  of  men  will  be  want- 
ing to  learn  the  stuff  you've  got  to  give  them.  Just 
hold  on  to  it.  There's  no  use  getting  mad  though. 
Denver  wasn't  built  in  a  day.  No  matter  what's 
coming,  pure  speculation  ain't  the  way  to  get  rich. 
Men  don't  get  anything  in  this  world  without  work. 
The  free  range  brings  about  as  good  money  as  will 
be  coming  to  anyone  for  some  time  yet.  For  all 
that,  one  ought  to  put  himself  in  the  way  of  taking 
in  a  share  of  the  honest  rake  off  that'll  be  coming 
from  Rapid's  sudden  building  up." 

Catharine  laughed  between  the  portieres.  "We 
Paines  all  feel  the  same  way  about  Rapid  but  for  the 
sake  of  argument  and  diversity  we  say  it  different- 
ly. She  had  one  arm  full  of  photographs  of  irregu- 
lar shapes  and  sizes,  and  sat  down  with  them  in  her 
lap,  folded  her  hands  above  them,  and  smiled  at  the 
two  men,  merrily  appreciative  of  the  incongruity  of 
the  types;  and  wondered  in  the  vaguest,  indefinite 
way,  if  they  could  ever  really  "hit  it  off." 

A  question  of  like  nature  made  for  her  an  under- 
current of  enjoyment  during  the  remainder  of  the 
evening.  No  sooner  had  Mr.  Paine  and  Walter 
withdrawn  than  Fred  and  Mildred  arrived.  Catha- 
rine presented  her  old  friends  to  her  new  one,  and 


64  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

neither  could  have  detected  a  shade  of  partiality  in 
her  cordial  gladness  at  doing  it.  It  occured  to  her, 
as  Fred  and  Mildred  followed  her  to  the  room  she 
had  stamped  for  her  own,  that  one  of  the  men  might 
not  be  able  to  discover  any  virtue  in  the  other ;  and 
the  question  of  which  would  thus  reveal  his  limita- 
tions made  of  the  meeting  a  situation  to  her.  But 
any  casual  anticipation  as  to  the  effect  of  an  intro- 
duction, was  startlingly  overreached.  Mr.  Burton 
stiffened  with  indignation,  his  fair  head  lifted  dis- 
dainfully. Fred  was  maliciously  suave.  During  the 
entire  evening,  as  if  in  social  exoneration,  and  as  a 
refuge  from  Fred,  Henry  graciously  devoted  him- 
self to  Mildred.  Fred  comfortably  settled  his  small 
figure  in  a  very  large  chair  and  after  a  few  harras- 
sing  sallies  became  benignly  resigned  to  the  retri- 
bution of  a  despised  but  complacent  sinner.  Catha- 
rine arrived  at  the  conclusion  at  the  evening  pro- 
ceeded, that  Fred  behaved  much  the  better  of  the 
two. 

Catharine  and  Mildred  had  kissed  at  the  door  and 
came  through  the  rooms  with  their  arms  around 
each  other's  waists.  When  they  were  seated  before 
the  fireplace,  Catharine  looked  at  her  friend,  with 
the  same  condening  disapproval  as  of  old,  but  there 
was  no  wistfulness  in  her  face.  The  craving  that 
Mildred  could  not  satisfy  had  been  fed. 

"You  are  not  changed  at  all,"  she  commented 
thoughtfully.  It  was  the  same  plump  figure,  the 
same  coarse  abundant  hair,  deep  colored  cheeks,  and 
alertness  for  'fun.' " 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  65 

"And  six  years  of  teaching.  That's  a  record," 
Mildred  responded. 

"Don't  you  remember?"  Catharine  recalled, 
"After  the  first  week,  you  said  you  were  looking  for 
an  opening  into  woman's  true  vocation !" 

"So  I  did,"  and  her  full  laughter  emphasized  the 
resolution.  "I  don't  know  as  I  have  altered  any 
there.  I'd  have  taken  to  the  home  making  trade 
before  this  only  there  has  always  promised  to  be  a 
new  influx  of  men  to  choose  from.  First  it  was  the 
railroad  coming  and  then  the  boom." 

"I  wish  you  could  have  gone  to  Vassar  with  me,** 
Catharine  mused  in  sincere  belief  that  there  was 
fertile  soil  that  had  grown  up  in  weeds.  "She  might 
have  been  toned  down,"  she  would  have  expressed 
it. 

"I  wish  I  could  have,"  Mildred  responded  cheer- 
fully. "What  have  you  got  here?"  and  she  lifted 
the  top  photograph  from  the  table  where  the  assort- 
ment had  been  placed.  There  were  pictures  of  col- 
lege dramatics,  the  girl's  rooms,  the  campus,  basket 
ball  teams,  and  glee  clubs.  Mildred  ran  over  them 
hurriedly,  shoving  each  to  the  bottom  till  she 
had  returned  to  the  one  with  which  she  started, 
whereupon  she  generously  remarked,  "A  pretty  lot 
of  girls,"  and  pushing  them  back,  got  up,  seated  her- 
self on  the  piano  stool,  and  began  to  drum  out  the 
latest  rag  time.  Fred  took  the  abandoned  photo- 
graphs and  passed  them  carelessly  through  his 
hands,  Catharine  watched  him  drawn  by  an  un- 
emotional attraction,  an  inexplicable  claim  for  pity. 


66  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

He  caught  her  glance  and,  placed  the  photographs 
on  the  table  behind  him.  Mildred  whirled  on  the 
piano  stool  and  desired  to  know  with  what  further 
rendition  she  might  favor  them. 

Fred  and  Mildred  finally  departed  and  Henry 
lingered  only  until  they  had  gone.  He  had  put  on 
his  coat  and  gloves  and  held  his  hat  in  his  hand. 
They  stood  in  the  hallway. 

"I  hope,"  he  said,  "that  I  have  not  been  rude  to 
your  guest." 

"You  are  not  democratic  enough,**  she  replied 
slowly.  "We  are  not  eclectic  in  Rapid  except  per- 
haps as  to  what  portion  of  a  man  we  shall  choose 
for  our  intercourse.  We  exclude  no  one, — well,  al- 
most no  one,  from  comradship,  because  he  has  ob- 
noxious parts.  We  succeed  in  finding  a  congenial 
fragment.  Fred  Tyler  may  be  all  bad  but  he  has 
the  grace  to  know  it.  In  fact  I  suspect  there  are 
really  manly  traits  which  he  secretively  disowns  out 
of  shame  for  the  company  they  keep.  You  must  see 
my  mother's  friend,  Mrs.  Allen,  then  stand  at  the 
street  corner  some  day  when  there  are  whiffs  of 
heinous  gossip  in  the  air  to  know  how  generous  we 
can  be." 

"You  mistake,'*  the  man  replied.  "It  was  not  the 
villainy  of  it.  It  was  that  they  mistook  me  for  their 
kind.  When  one  belongs  to  a  family  and  has  lived 
in  its  midst,  he  comes  to  think  that  he  carries  on  his 
brow  the  marks  of  its  probity.  To  be  undeceived 
is  a  shock  to  his  conceit.** 

Catharine  laughed.    "It  wasn't  you,  it  was  your 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  67 

position.  They  believe  that  is  what  the  assayer  at 
the  school  is  for,  to  give  fictitious  reports  on  their 
specimens.  It  is  disloyal  to  the  section  to  conform 
to  the  moderation  of  scientific  analysis.  Still,  I 
thought  Fred  would  know  his  man." 

"It  wasn't  he  who  approached  me,  but  he's  in  the 
gang." 

"Oh,'*  her  face  was  bright  with  comprehension. 
"Dr.  Gillette  is  one  man  you  will  not  meet  in  this 
house." 

Henry  observed  the  girl  cautiously  aware  that  he 
had  seemed  to  tell  more  than  he  meant  to  reveal. 
"How  do  you  know  such  things?"  he  asked. 

"How  will  father  know  in  a  week's  time  that  you 
turned  them  down?  Their  deal  won't  go  through 
and  the  zealously  righteous  member  of  the  board  of 
trustees  will  be  writing  back  to  know  if  their  in- 
formation that  you  are  wretchedly  incompetent,  and 
negligent,  is  true  or  the  fiction  of  enmity.  Oh,  it'll 
all  be  plain  enough.    But  you'll  stay?    Won't  you?" 

"Stay,  of  course  I'll  stay,"  and  Henry  said  his 
goodnight  with  a  gaiety  he  hardly  felt. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  day  before  Catharine  had  come  in  with 
Margie  from  a  climb  to  Hangman's  Hill  and 
found  Mrs.  Allen  presiding  at  a  guild  meet- 
ing in  her  mother's  parlor.  She  slipped  off  her 
coat  and  hat,  handed  the  basket  of  shooting  stars 
to  Margie,  with  a  whispered  suggestion  as  to 
the  fitting  vase  that  would  contain  them,  moved  a 
chair  inside  the  room,  sat  down  and  listened  to  her 
mother  who  was  praying.  As  she  followed  the 
prayer,  she  was  suddenly  struck  with  the  purity  of 
its  English  and  the  tellingly  figurative  turns  in  its 
expression.  Except  for  these  rarer  qualities,  she 
would  have  noted  first  its  over  emotionalized 
earnestness.  Deferentially  holding  her  hand  above 
one  eye  brow,  she  looked  out  from  under  it  with  ad- 
miration that  quickened  into  covert  tenderness. 
She  ceased  to  follow  the  prayer;  and,  in  the  innu- 
merable, indecisive  wrinkles  of  the  face,  the  mouth 
that  quivered  as  easily,  the  trustful,  pleading,  con- 
fidential tone  of  the  voice,  the  girl  began  to  find  the 
key  to  a  charm  she  had  only  half  divined. 

The  prayer  ended  and  Mrs.  Allen  arose.    She  did 
not  speak  for  several  seconds  and  in  the  pause  was 

68 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  69 

a  reverent  "Amen"  to  the  subtler  tokens  of  old  time 
sanctity,  that  from  the  few  who  could  detect  the 
quality  brought  to  Mrs.  Paine  a  bit  of  the  adoration 
with  which  the  Mediaeval  man  regarded  the  saints. 
In  the  silence  Catharine  did  not  recognize  Mrs. 
Allen.  She  spoke  and  the  girl  remembered.  Her 
mother  was  older,  ten  years  perhaps  and  the  other 
might  have  been  the  sterner,  hardier  battle-strength- 
ened sister.  Her  hair  was  parted  as  was  Mrs. 
Paine's.  Her  gown  was  more  severely  simple  but  of 
softened  grays  and  whites.  Her  features  were 
larger  as  was  her  body.  The  clearness  of  her  blue 
eyes  was  keener,  yet,  to  one  not  blinded  by  the 
prominently  striking,  there  was  behind  their  bright 
directness  the  same  depth  of  troubled  brooding  that 
was  most  readily  noted  in  Mrs.  Paine's  glance. 
When  Mrs.  Allen  looked  up,  her  eyes  betrayed  no 
secret,  and  if  she  had  been  moved  to  tenderness, 
the  emotion  in  no  wise  mastered  her.  When  she 
spoke,  the  voice  was  full,  cheerful,  and  positive. 

"Mrs.  Warner  will  tell  us  of  her  plans  for  the 
county  fair,"  she  stated. 

Mrs.  Warner  had  already  begun  to  arise.  Trans- 
fering  her  handkerchief,  gloves,  pencil  and  memo- 
randa slips  from  her  lap  to  the  chair  she  had  occu- 
pied, she  stepped  out  and  presented  the  situation. 
The  little  chapel  was  built,  in  a  month  when  the 
bishop  came  it  would  be  quite  completed.  Bounteous 
friends  in  the  East  had  been  generous,  people  in 
Rapid  had  helped,  five  hundred  dollars  more  and  the 
debt  would  be  paid ;  the  church  would  be  dedicated, 


70  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

after  the  dedication  there  would  be  the  confirmation 
service  and  also,  she  hinted,  there  would  be  a  mar- 
riage. What  she  proposed  was  not  a  stupid  church 
fair  but  a  farcical  county  fair.  Old  settlers*  picnics, 
bronco  breaking  performances,  free  lasso  contests 
and  Indian  war  dances  had  left  no  demand  for  the 
real  county  fair  in  the  Black  Hills.  But  its  imita- 
tion would  be  a  reminiscence  of  back  East,  down 
South,  or  up  North.  Everybody  came  from  some- 
where. The  admission  fee  would  be  purely  nominal, 
twenty  five  cents,  say,  small  articles  of  fabulous  uti- 
lity would  be  offered  for  sale,  demonstrations  of 
home  mixed  baking  powder  and  a  newly  arrived 
brand  of  coffee  would  furnish  the  refreshments. 
She  only  offered  illustrative  suggestions.  It  was  the 
sort  of  play  to  which  Catharine  was  accustomed. 
Mrs.  Warner  was  mindful  of  the  girl  as  she  began 
to  sort  her  memoranda.  She  picked  up  first  one 
piece  of  paper,  then  another,  and  when  the  names 
of  the  committees  were  finally  read,  Catharine, 
hearing  her  own  repeated  so  frequently,  suspected 
an  impromptu  revision  of  the  lists. 

When  the  meeting  was  over,  Mrs.  Warner,  strew- 
ing hasty  inquiries,  conciliatory  postponements  of 
appointments,  inclusive  little  nods  of  the  head,  and 
hurried  squeezes  of  the  hand,  made  her  way  to  Ca- 
tharine. "Kitty  Paine,  we've  been  waiting  for  you," 
she  exclaimed. 

"I  don't  believe  that,  but  I'll  help.  It'll  be  fun," 
Catharine  held  the  hand  Mrs.  Warner  had  lent  her, 
as  one  girl  holds  another's.    "You  shan't  get  away 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  71 

with  a  passing  fabrication,  if  there  were  a  dozen 
church  fairs,"  she  teased  cordially.  Catharine  wa3 
evading  a  summons  from  her  mother  but  Mrs.  War- 
ner would  not  be  detained. 

"Yes,  I  can,  Kitty  Paine,  get  away  even  from  you 
because  your  mother  wants  you",  and  she  moved  on, 
leaving  Catharine  isolated.  The  girl  turned  re- 
luctantly. The  pride  of  her  mothers  voice  had 
become  imperious. 

"Mrs.  Allen  remembers  you,  dear",  the  mother 
said  pulling  the  two  together  with  manifest  affec- 
tion for  each. 

"Yes",  Catharine  answered,  "I  remember  Mrs. 
Allen."  If  the  woman  felt  the  emphasis  the  girl 
did  not  try  to  keep  out  of  her  voice,  she  gave  no 
sign.  Mrs.  Paine  was  in  a  flutter  of  anxious  de- 
light. Between  the  two,  Catharine  experienced  an 
irritating  sense  of  inadequacy.  Mrs.  Allen  was  smil- 
ing upon  her  and  taking  her  moral  mearsurements. 
She  excused  herself  abruptly  with  the  pretext  of 
directing  Margie  and  Walter  in  the  distribution  of 
coffee  and  cake. 

That  night  at  the  dinner  table,  when  the  children 
had  retired  for  a  game  of  marbles  on  the  back 
parlor  floor,  Catharine  introduced  the  subject. 

"Father,  what  do  you  think  of  Mrs.  Allen?" 

"He  bent  his  eyes  furtively,  saw  its  uselessness, 
yet  employed  his  customary  evasion  when,  in  the 
circle  of  his  family,  dealing  with  certain  open 
knowledge  of  the  street.  "She  is  a  very  nice  lady, 
isn't  she?      Doesn't  she  always  conduct  herself 


72  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

modestly?" 

"Such  part  of  her  bearing  as  she  has  fashioned 
after  mother's  is  ideal.  As  to  what  isn't  copied 
from  mother,  I  shall  judge  when  I  discover  the 
model.  I  think  she  is  is  a  very  thin  crucible  where 
an  experiment  in  suffusion  is  in  its  early  stages." 

"Your  talk  is  too  learned  to  be  understood",  Mr. 
Paine  scoffed  and  arose  without  ceremony. 

Catharine  leaned  her  elbows  on  the  table.  She 
was  fretted  with  her  father's  evasion  and  rebuff. 
She  had  not  meant  to  speak  other  than  simply.  She 
knew  that  he  would  at  any  time  listen  down  town 
with  relish  to  the  scandal  upon  which  she  had 
broached. 

Her  mother's  blue  eyes  looked  at  her  from  behind 
her  glasses.  "I  guess  the  suffusion  has  resulted  in 
a  rich,  clear  character  that  it  just  her  own."  There 
was  a  little  of  the  sharpness  of  reproof  in  her  words 
but  she  went  on  after  a  moment  very  gently. 
"Catharine,"  she  admonished,  "when  you  know 
Mrs.  Allen  as  well  as  I  do  you  will  not  believe  what 
you  seem  to  now.  She  is  a  brave,  splendid  woman.  I 
don't  know  what  people  say.  People  say  anything. 
I  don't  know  how  she  and  John  Allen  happened  to 
marry.  But  they  are  very  happy  together  and  very 
devoted  to  each  other." 

"Are  they?"  Catharine  received  the  statement  as 
a  novel  turn  in  the  complication.  "I  wonder,"  she 
meditated  plucking  a  large  grape  from  a  full  bunch 
and  sucking  it.    Her  head  drooped  thoughtfully. 

That  evening  owing  to  the  abrupt  departure  of  a 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  78 

recalcitrant  servant,  Mrs.  Allen  was  washing  the 
dinner  dishes  and  John  was  placing  them  on  the 
shelves  for  her. 

"Did  you  know  Catharine  Paine  was  home  from 
college?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,  I  stopped  in  at  the  skating-rink  last  night 
and  she  was  there  with  Fred.  Dandy  girl,  don't  you 
think?"  He  spoke  with  almost  a  bachelor  interest 
as  to  a  devoted  older  sister. 

Mrs.  Allen  rescued  a  painted  Havelin  plate  from 
a  pile  of  blue  and  white  menial  dishes.  "She  has 
the  outward  marks  of  a  fine  woman  but  is  too  un- 
worthily wise  to  touch  the  hem  of  her  mother's 
garments." 

"Well,  you  think  Mrs.  Paine  is  too  good  for  this 
world,  anyway.  But  you  get  pretty  near  to  her 
yourself,  don't  you?" 

"I  let  her  think  so  but  actually,  I  worship  at  a 
distance, — No,  leave  those.  Don't  hold  that  tray  in 
that  fashion.  Mary  has  it  all  over  finger  marks  as 
it  is." 

"Yes,  I  see  you  worshipping  anywhere,"  he  grum- 
bled but  obeyed  her  whistling  boyishly  as  he  did  so." 


CHAPTER  IV 


HENRY  BURTON  turned  into  Library  Hall  in 
anticipation  not  so  much  of  the  fair  as  of 
Catharine  Paine.  He  was  very  tall  and 
erect  and  the  long  straight  lines  of  his  gar- 
ments and  the  gracious  ease  of  his  bearing  made 
him  to  some  a  reminder  of  abandoned  delights  and  to 
others  a  hint  of  the  inexperienced.  In  the  entrance 
way  he  began  to  pull  off  his  gloves,  and  looked 
around,  as  if  for  a  place  where  he  might  check  his 
hat  and  outdoor  coat,  then  caught  sight  of  Catha- 
rine's head  at  the  ticket  window.  Framed  by  the 
limits  of  the  square  aperture,  it  was  the  caricature 
of  her  part.  Little  knobs  of  glass  hung  by  invisible 
threads  from  her  ears.  A  bonnet  of  tinsel  paper 
adorned  with  a  scraggly  black  ostrich  plume,  was 
tied  under  her  chin  by  flowing  strings  of  tulle.  Her 
jaws  worked  with  an  energy  wearisome  to  observe, 
over  a  wad  of  gum.  Expeditiously,  with  haughty  in- 
difference as  to  personality,  as  if  her  arm  worked  on 
hinges  at  the  shoulder  and  elbow,  her  hand  shoved 
out  the  ticket,  received  the  money  and  dropped  it 
into  the  cigar  box  before  her.  After  waiting  his 
turn,  Mr.  Burton  reached  the  window  and  present^ 


74 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  75 

ed  a  dollar.  "Change?"  she  inquired  unsmilingly 
holding  to  her  part.  "No,"  was  the  magnanimous  re- 
sponse. "Next,"  she  dismissed  him,  but  by  that  in- 
visible language  which  has  no  symbols  of  signs  or 
sounds  she  at  the  same  time,  told  him  to  wait  till 
the  present  influx  of  people  had  passed.  Then  she 
bent  down  and  smiled.  He  realized  with  pleasure 
that,  in  spite  of  large  features,  she  assumed  the 
tawdry  without  danger  of  it  in  the  slightest  appear- 
ing as  ought  but  a  travesty. 

"The  entire  family  is  inside,"  she  said.  "Walter 
and  I  have  a  place  under  the  gallery  where  he  will 
hide  your  coat  and  other  encumbrances.  He  was 
inquiring  for  you  a  moment  ago.  Mildred  is  to  take 
my  carbuncles  and  my  rooster  tail  presently  and  Mr. 
Allen  and  I  shall  be  demonstrating  for  Mrs.  War- 
ner's baking  powder.  In  the  recess  you  and  I  can 
overlook  the  fair  and  the  company.  There's  Walter. 
He'll  tell  you  more  than  I  ever  dreamed  of  know- 
ing." Again  she  assumed  her  glassy  expression  and 
began  the  angular  action  of  her  arm. 

"Thank  you,"  Mr.  Burton  answered  as  he  moved 
inside.  He  was  thinking,  "She  and  Mr.  Allen  going 
to  demonstrate!"  Catharine  was  firmly  rejecting  a 
Canadian  quarter. 

That  Catharine  was  to  co-operate  with  Mr.  Allen 
in  the  cooking  and  serving  of  waffles  and  maple 
syrup  was  as  much  a  puzzle  to  her  as  to  Henry.  It 
was  to  have  been  Mr.  Allen  and  Mildred  who  were 
to  sell  the  baking  powder ;  then  Mildred  had  been  re- 
legated to  the  ticket  window  at  the  hour,  when  every 


78  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

one  who  would  be  likely  to  come  had  arrived,  and 
Catharine  was  to  preside  at  the  gasoline  range. 
Both  girls  were  displeased.  It  was  Mrs.  Paine  who 
had  delivered  the  message  that  forced  the  transfer. 
Catharine  did  not  remonstrate,  but  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  hour  at  the  window,  worked  out  a 
modification  of  the  arrangements.  And  when  Mil- 
dred appeared,  disgruntled  and  out  of  humour,  she 
submitted  her  revision  of  the  orders  from  headquar- 
ters. Taking  off  her  gewgays,  Catharine  stood  very 
richly  gowned,  in  dark  red.  She  pinned  down  her 
hat  and  began  to  work  on  her  gloves.  "You  needn't 
stay,  Mildred,"  she  asserted.  We'll  give  the  funds 
to  Mrs.  Warner,  and  Walter  can  play  around  out 
here.  If  anyone  arrives  he  can  put  the  money  in 
his  pocket.  That's  what  I  meant  to  do.  It's  foolish 
for  you  to  waste  your  sweetness  on  the  desert  air. 
Of  course,  while  the  caravans  go  by,  it's  different. 
I'll  get  Fred  and  v/e  four  can  sell  the  baking  powder 
and  the  coffee  all  together.  The  two  are  allied, 
since  there  are  hot  biscuit  in  one  and  waffles  in  the 
other." 

"You  are  a  trump,  Kitty,"  Mildred  exclaimed. 
"Is  Mrs.  Allen  afraid  John  will  like  me  that  she 
wants  to  be  so  mean?" 

"Nonsense!"  Catharine  dismissed  it.  However, 
she  resolved  that  at  any  rate  Mrs.  Allen  should  have 
no  opportunity  to  be  jealous  of  her.  She  joined  Mr. 
Burton  and  as  they  walked  down  the  hall,  he  felt 
her  stateliness  far  more  than  his  own.  Her  lofty 
indifference  to  the  plainess  of  her  large  featured 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  77 

face,  and  the  easy  carriage  of  her  tall  figure,  trans- 
formed her  homeliness  into  a  dignity  of  personality. 
Library  Hall  was  Rapid's  one  public  building.  It 
consisted  of  a  gallery,  a  stage  and  a  flat  intervening 
space;  was  used  for  lectures,  dramatic  performan- 
ces or  dances.  In  its  newness,  it  was  a  clean  place 
small  and  crudely  furnished,  but  withal  equal  to 
the  entertainments  it  housed.  That  day  the  stage 
had  been  made  pretty  after  the  standard  of  church 
fairs  with  booths  of  baby  clothes,  painted  china, 
embroidered  tray  cloths  and  doilies;  and  in  happy 
substitution  for  the  output  of  conservatories,  the 
splendid  richness  of  the  mountain  wild  flowers  had 
been  strikingly  arranged.  There  had  been  a  lavish 
use  of  the  more  gorgeous  and  a  telling  economy  of 
the  delicate  sorts.  "It  is  artistically  done,"  Henry 
said  fronting  it.  "Whose  work?"  Catharine  waited 
soberly.  She  was  desirous  of  communicating  the 
truth  and  knew  that  he  would  translate  the  wording 
of  it  into  a  modest  evasion.  "I  executed,"  she  said, 
"but  Margie  directed.  It's  rather  in  this  order  of 
thing  that  her  sister  excels,"  and  Catharine  turned 
to  the  floor.  Here  were  only  the  farcial  displays 
and  sales  carried  out  with  admirable  zest.  Hairpins, 
electric  combs,  novel  egg  beaters,  pigs-in-the-clover 
puzzles,  were  presented  with  the  customary  panto- 
mine  exemplification  of  merits.  In  much  the  same 
way  as  at  actual  fairs,  groups  passed  from  one  to 
the  other,  laughed  at  the  verbal  and  bodily  contor- 
tions of  the  actors ;  caught  the  contagion  of  buying 
or  passed  by  indifferently,  only  to  return  to  in- 


78  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

crease  the  size  of  a  crowd  already  appreciative. 
Catharine  and  Henry  moved  from  one  end  of  the 
room  to  the  other,  enjoying  it  all  with  a  common  and 
exclusive  basis  of  judgment  that  had  been  establish- 
ed between  them.  Catharine  was  planning  to  draw 
an  audience  about  a  worthy  and  neglected  table, 
when  Mrs.  Warner  flurried  up  to  them,  "Kitty 
Paine,  we  are  so  late.  Do  go  right  to  work  or 
people  will  get  away  without  eating  and  people  will 
pay  anything  to  eat  when  they  can  have  a  good  laugh 
free.  Isn't  it  going  well?  Come  right  along,"  and 
Catharine  was  pulled  away  and  Henry  turned  to 
speak  to  her  mother. 

It  was,  in  the  end,  Henry  who  was  installed  in 
the  baking  powder  demonstration.  Catharine  in  an 
effort  to  marshal  her  force  and  collect  the  parapher- 
nalia came  upon  Fred  and  Mildred  in  the  boarded  up 
comer  at  the  rear  of  the  stage  that  in  certain  emer- 
gencies served  for  a  "lady's  dressing  room."  They 
were  seated  on  a  dry  goods  box,  and  Fred  was  shak- 
ing his  head. 

"I'll  eat  your  cakes,  but  I  won't  cook  them,"  he 
asserted,  and  silently  refused  to  justify  his  position. 

"Sometimes,  Fred,  I  think  you  are  the  most  can- 
tankerous man,"  Mildred  declared. 

"Very  correctly,"  he  agreed. 

Catharine  arrived  in  time  to  overhear  the  compli- 
ment and  Fred  included  her  in  the  confidence  of  his 
confession.  Mildred  made  room  and  she  took  the 
other  end  of  the  box. 

"He  says  he'll  eat  our  cakes  but  he  won't  cook 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  79 

them,"  Mildred  explained. 

Catharine  by  refraining  from  comment  always 
inspired  Fred  with  an  impulse  to  defend  his  stand 
in  an  allegorical  way. 

"Oh,  I'll  eat  anything  that's  palatable.  I'd  have 
eaten  the  miraculously  multiplied  loaves  and  fishes; 
but  I  wouldn't  have  passed  the  baskets." 

"You  wouldn't  have  liked  to  feel  the  contents 
dwindle  on  your  hands  as  stock  bought  at  a  pre- 
mium going  down,"  Catharine  began  lightly;  then 
flushed  and  added,  "Yet  why  not  take  the  risks? 
You  take  enough  in  other  lines." 

"Well,  well,"  Mildred  mused  irreverently,  "I  think 
Catharine  is  about  to  approach  the  question  of 
Fred's  redemption.  To  my  notion  he  is  a  lot  more 
fun  as  an  unsaved  sinner,  but  for  the  present  I 
sincerely  hope  that  he  may  be  brought  to  a  more 
accommodating  frame  of  mind.  I'll  go  light  the 
gasoline."  Mildred's  healthy  beauty  impressed 
them  both  as  she  stood  for  a  moment  tossing  her 
banter,  thoughtlessly  impervious  to  any  deeper 
meaning  to  the  moment  than  the  organization  of  a 
congenial  company  for  cooking  biscuits  and  waffles. 

"Mildred  is  just  the  same  as  when  we  came  in  on 
the  stage,"  Catharine  said  when  she  was  gone. 

"No,"  Fred  differed.  "She  is  six  years  nearer 
thirty." 

"I  won't  admit  your  implication,"  Catharine 
maintained.    "We  are  only  as  old  as  we  feel." 

"After  a  certain  point,  perhaps";  Fred  conceded, 
"but  Mildred  has  not  reached  it.    You  will  know 


80  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

what  I  mean  when  she  is  thirty." 

Catharine  tacitly  yielded  her  point  and  they  were 
silent.  It  was  one  of  the  pauses  out  of  which  springs 
life-long  wealth  or  poverty  in  human  relations. 
Catharine  could  detect  the  nature  of  such  moments 
and  stop  to  take  their  offering  in  the  busiest  hours. 
The  small  smutty  lamp  on  the  board  that  served  for 
a  toilet  table  was  smoking  its  chimney ;  she  reach- 
ed up  her  daintily  clothed  arm,  gingerly  turned  down 
the  wick,  and  waited. 

"It  is  I  who  am  the  same,"  he  said  at  last  slowly, 
"you,  who  have  over  topped  us  all.  Your  charity  has 
broadened  to  take  me  in.  Before,  there  was  only 
room  for  Mildred." 

"Do  you  demand  a  broader  charity?"  she  asked, 
"or  merely  a  different  one?" 

He  bent  quickly  and  the  lines  of  his  face  were  lost 
in  one  comprehensive  sweep  of  pain.  "Do  you 
know?"  he  asked  in  that  abruptness  with  which  a 
close  kept  suffering  once  or  twice  in  a  life  time 
breaks  its  bounds,  "I  was  four  feet  six  inches  high 
until  I  was  twenty-two.  Even  the  most  kindly  men 
tossed  me  in  sport.  Then  as  if  for  a  taunt  at  what 
had  been  made  of  me,  I  grew  to  this  normal  small- 
ness.  Do  you  know  what  that  meant  to  a  boy,  to 
a  man?" 

"I  can  imagine,"  she  answered,  and  she  dared  to 
look  at  him.  Her  glance  did  not  hurt  him.  "It  was 
a  chance  for  heroism,"  she  condemned  him.  "Then 
these  extra  inches  would  have  been  the  crowning 
blessing  and  not  belated  justice,  ironic  emphasis  of 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  81 

perverted  discipline.  Most  of  us  are  common  place 
mortals.  A  few  have  your  choice."  If  her  words 
were  cruel,  her  tone  held  only  forgiving  regret  that 
he  had  missed  his  great  opportunity. 

"I  have  thought  of  that,"  he  answered  sweetly, 
without  courage,  and  then  with  calm  acceptance, 
"If  I  had  been  the  hero,  Henry  Burton  never  would 
have  known  you." 

"Oh,  Fred,"  she  took  it  without  evasion  and  out 
of  unacknowledged  emotions  nascent  in  herself, 
leapt  the  far-reaching  significance  of  his  loss.  "Isn't 
it  another,  a  bigger  chance?" 

Fred  shook  his  head.  "From  the  beginning  it  has 
seemed  life  was  hopeless,  that  it  was  too  late  to  try, 
that  I  had  lost  out,  before  I  began  to  fight." 

"I  wonder  if  I  should  feel  that  way."  Some  an- 
swer evidently  came  from  within,  and  she  went  on, 
"But  even  if  I  wouldn't  I  have  had  such  a  start." 

"You'd  be  the  hero,"  he  declared. 

"But  we'll  hope  I'll  never  have  to  be,"  It  was 
from  her  vivid  comprehension  of  what  heroism  de- 
manded that,  as  in  fright  at  a  premonition,  she  held 
her  impotent  human  desire  against  it. 

"We'll  hope  you'll  never  have  to  be,"  he  agreed 
with  winning  gentleness. 

"But  if  I  do,  Fred,  I'll  have  you,"  she  said,  "not 
that  other  way,"  she  hastened  with  the  relentless 
honesty  of  her  nature,  "But  this  way."  They  had 
risen  and  held  each  other's  hands,  "I'll  have  you  to 
give  me  what  I  am  giving  you." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "if  you  must  carry  it,  I  shall  give 


82  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

you  what  you  are  giving  me  who  have  retused  the 
burden  of  the  hero's  crown." 

Mildred  was  returning  along  the  rear  of  the  stage 
"Very  well,  Fred  Tyler,  it  serves  you  right.  We 
don't  need  you  and  you  couldn't  come  if  you  wanted 
to.  You  shan't  have  Kitty  either  for  consolation  in 
your  desolate  obstancy."  She  pulled  Catharine  away 
and  Fred,  standing  as  they  left  him,  listened  to  the 
information  she  divulged  as  they  went.  "Mr.  Bur- 
ton is  to  cook  the  waffles.  I  never  thought  he  would 
but  Mrs.  Warner  inveigled  him  into  it.  He  is  good 
fun  too.  We've  got  him  rigged  up  and  in  his  white 
apron  and  cap,  he  is  even  handsomer  than  in  his 
prince  Albert.  I'd  like  mighty  well  to  cut  you 
out,  Kitty." 

Fred  shook  his  slight  frame  shiveringly.  He 
was  tired  as  he  often  was  after  he  had  put  through 
a  tough  deal.  Hunting  his  way  through  boxes, 
scenery  wings  pushed  back  from  the  stage,  papers, 
discarded  flowers,  and  other  debris,  he  crept  down 
the  back  entrance  and  out  into  the  street. 

In  the  distribution  of  parts,  it  was  Henry  Burton 
who  worked  with  Mildred,  and  John  with  Catharine. 
How  such  an  arrangement  came  about  was  not  clear 
to  any  one  of  those  most  nearly  concerned.  Mildred 
was  highly  del'ghted  and  "joshed"  and  "jollied"  Mr. 
Burton  with  rollicking  heartiness.  After  a  short 
period  of  awkward  timidity  on  his  part,  Catharine 
established  comfortable  relations  with  John.  He 
seemed  to  her  an  open-minded  unsophisticated 
youth,  and  entered  into  the  play  with  almost  childish 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  83 

gusto.  From  across  the  room,  Mrs.  Allen  watched 
with  beaming  approbation  inclusive  of  them  both. 
She  was  never  more  absolutely  at  peace  than  when, 
herself  unobserved,  her  real  interest  ensconced  be- 
hind some  busy  preoccupation,  she  followed  a  friend- 
ly enjoyment  shared  by  John  and  some  woman 
younger  than  herself,  the  finer  the  woman,  the 
greater  was  her  content. 

Contrary  to  her  anticipation,  Catharine,  when 
she  left  the  fair  that  night,  found  John  Allen  by  her 
side  carrying  a  table,  a  mixing  pan,  and  a  bunch  of 
tiger  lilies.  Mrs.  Allen  was  to  follow  with  her 
mother  but  she  was  detained.  They  had  hardly 
reached  the  Paine  house  when  Henry  and  Mildred 
dropped  in  to  rest  their  arms.  A  half  hour  later 
the  telephone  rang  and  Mrs.  Allen  said  to  tell  John 
that  she  had  gone  home  and  he  need  not  hurry. 
The  four  young  people  made  a  very  merry  party. 
When  John  finally  entered  his  own  establishment 
some  minutes  after  twelve,  Mrs.  Allen  greeted  him 
with  the  plans  for  a  picnic.  Laying  out  the  list  for 
inspection,  she  read  it  off.  "The  Paines  and  us,  the 
new  high  school  teacher  elect,  yes,  and  Henry  Bur- 
ton and  Mildred,"  Mrs.  Allen  added  the  last  name, 
the  tardiness  of  its  mention  receiving  explanation 
by  the  matter  of  fact  intonation  as  if  it  had  been 
taken  for  granted.  "And  Fred,"  she  scratched  the 
last  two  names  at  the  end  of  the  list.  "Well,  we  are 
the  company,"  she  laughed,  "let  us  make  out  a 
crowd." 


CHAPTER  V 


CATHARINE  and  Henry  rode  out  from  the  en- 
trance of  the  canyon,  where  the  red  rocks 
went  up  straight  and  dark,  rugged  and  tree- 
less. They  had  of  necessity  gone  single  file  through 
the  rough  irregular  road  way  that  had  been  picked 
through  the  bolder  strewn  opening  between  the 
granite  walls.  Soon  as  the  canyon  broadened  out 
he  came  abreast,  and  they  went  together  along  a 
smooth  gravel  path.  The  canyon  stretched  back  in 
steep  thickly  wooded  slopes,  still  wild  with  the  added 
wildness  of  dark  pines,  while  the  narrow  gulches 
that  cut  crosswise  at  diverse  angles  each  suggested 
an  infinite  diversity  of  the  unexplored. 

"Did  you  ever  see  a  mountain  before?"  Catha- 
rine asked  with  assumed  naivete. 

"The  Catskills,"  he  answered  . 

"The  Catskills,"  she  scoffed.  "All  undulation, 
moderation,  blending,  outlines  lost  in  abundance  of 
wooded  greenness,  great  swelings  of  the  common 
place.  Here,  has  worked  a  force  that  could  not  be 
resisted,  that  has  left  scars  which  can  never  be 
effaced. 

"How  you  do  love  your  own,"  he  said  admiringly. 


84 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  85 

"You  are  personal,"  she  accused  him,  but  referred 
more  to  the  tribute  in  his  eyes  than  to  his  words. 

"Yes,  I  am  personal,"  he  admitted  with  sudden  de- 
cision. 

Her  whip  played  with  the  rose  bushes  by  the  way- 
side. There  was  a  direct  simplicity  about  Henry 
Burton  that  kept  his  thought  clear  and  found  for  it 
an  unhaulting  expression.  A  furtive  glance  from 
Catharine  caught  a  smile  of  winning  assurance 
that  strangely  did  not  offend.  There  was  no  coquet- 
ry in  the  girl's  nature.  She  was  not  yearning  to  be 
flatteringly  wooed  but  to  be  loved. 

Just  here,  Walter,  panting  for  himself  and  his 
supposedly  foam-covered  steed,  cutting  the  air 
with  his  quirt  in  a  fine  pretense  of  lashing  his 
pony,  dashed  through  the  rock  strewn  mouth  of  the 
canyon  at  a  truly  reckless  speed.  His  slight  figure 
leaned  forward  in  the  saddle.  "Did  you  see  three 
Indian  Bucks  peering  from  the  brink  of  yon  sharp 
precipice?"  His  voice  rose  to  the  tragedy  of  the 
inquiry  but  the  quirt  lopped  in  boorish  refusal 
of  being  put  to  dramatic  gesticulation. 

"Three!  man,  thirty  rather,"  Henrj^  also  rose  in 
his  saddle  and  his  whip  followed  the  swift  straight 
lift  of  his  hand,  with  such  impressively  striking 
precision,  that  Walter  wondered  whether,  after  all, 
a  quirt  was  the  proper  thing  to  carry  in  one's 
right  hand  when  riding.  "A  band  of  Red  Skins 
lie  hid  in  the  treacherous  cavern,"  Henry's  slender 
raw  hide  continued  to  point  nowhere. 

"The  women  shall  be  rescued,  unless  perchance 


86  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

I  fall  into  an  ambush.  "  Walter  dug  his  newly  ac- 
quired spurs  into  the  sides  of  his  bronco  with  a 
chivalrous  enthusiasm  that  might  presently  have 
landed  him  on  a  rock  by  the  roadside  except  that  the 
irritation  of  the  animal  worked  itself  out  in  a  fran- 
tic gallop. 

"Now  I",  Henry  remarked,  "should  have  said  the 
woman  shall  be  rescued." 

"He  has  abandoned  Margie  to  be  scalped,  I  pre- 
sume," Catharine  answered. 

"Yes  but  she  has  escaped,"  Henry  replied;  for 
Margie,  Fred,  John,  Mildred,  and  the  pretty  high 
school  teacher  came  single  file  through  the  pass 
and  then  bunched  socially  around  Henry  and  Catha- 
rine in  the  space  beyond.  Mrs.  Allen  and  Mrs. 
Paine  had  also  turned  back  in  their  carriage.  The 
Indian  scout  who  escorted  them  was  invited  down 
from  his  saddle  to  make  sure  that  the  plug  in  the  ice 
cream  freezer  was  snug.  After  a  brief  conference 
as  to  routes,  he  was  consoled  for  this  degradation 
from  his  role  by  being  ordered  back  to  direct  the  in- 
mates of  the  carriages  that  followed  to, — "as  they 
valued  their  lives,"  Henry  interpolated — follow  the 
road  to  the  right  beyond  the  Red  Hill. 

An  hour  later  Fred  and  Walter  deposited  the  ice 
cream  freezer  on  a  provisional  foundation  built  up 
by  two  rocks  against  the  sloping  surface  of  a  bowl- 
der. Mildred  and  Catharine  followed  with  pillows 
and  a  hammock.  Fred  mopped  his  face.  In  the  shade 
of  the  bowlder  and  in  the  pause  from  their  exer- 
tions, they  were  fairly  chilled,  but,  "To  see  the  sun 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  87 

blistering  the  rocks  opposite  will  prevent  our  taking 
cold",  Mildred  commented.  The  carriages  and 
horses  had  been  left  far  below  and  the  party  had 
climbed  up  through  the  pathless  canyon,  picking  a 
way  over  the  chaotic  tumble  of  earth's  hardened  de- 
bris, and  avoiding  the  course  which  had  been  picked 
by  the  tiny  stream  that  was  now  lost  in  innumera- 
ble ramifications,  then  gathered  to  spread  its  small 
volume  over  a  width  of  sharpened  ledge,  and  col- 
lected below  in  shallow-seeming,  moss-trimmed, 
rock-lined  cisterns.  Each  one  of  the  climbers  at 
some  time  inadvertently  slipped  on  a  dampened 
rock,  or  one  treacherously  appearing  firm  but  easily 
tilted,  and  fell  into  the  water.  But  the  hot  July 
sun  made  the  discomfort  of  hardly  longer  duration 
than  the  laughter. 

"Hush",  Walter  hissed  upon  a  silence  with  a  pene- 
trating stage  whisper.  "Do  you  hear  the  stealthy 
tread  of  hands  and  feet  in  the  bed  of  the  stream?" 

John  after  two  awkward  efforts  regained  an  as- 
sured foothold  and  shook  the  boy  severely,  but  good- 
humoredly.  "I  say  we  stay  here,  or  consume  part 
of  the  luggage  before  we  go  on",  he  proposed.  He 
was  very  boyish  standing  there,  shaking  his  leg  in- 
side his  wet  trouser  and  looking  down  at  the  hamper 
which  by  a  frantic  contortion  of  his  arms  and  body, 
he  had  held  above  the  water  at  the  expense  of  his 
apparel.  Walter  was  throwing  pebbles  at  him  to 
provoke  a  renewal  of  their  skirmish. 

"We  can  stay  here",  Catharine  asserted.  She 
stood  up.    "It  has  been  moved  and  seconded  that 


88  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

our  destination  is  reached.    All  in  favor." 

"I.  I.  I,"  came  up  from  the  toilers  who  were 
still  far  down  in  the  canyon.  Whereupon,  those 
around  the  ice  cream  freezer  began  to  scramble  up 
the  slope  behind  to  a  wooded,  level  place  that  might 
be  called  a  miniature  plateau  or  the  first  landing  of 
a  giant  stairway. 

"I  volunteer  to  gather  the  fuel,  if  Miss  Paine  will 
build  the  fireplace  and  make  the  coffee,"  John  an- 
nounced. 

"They  don't  teach  that  at  Vassar,"  Mildred  ob- 
jected. 

*'I  accept  the  challenge,"  Catharine  answered. 

When  John  brought  his  hat  full  of  dry  cones,  he 
laughed  at  her  kiln,  and  without  apology,  went  to 
work  to  make  it  over.  "Mine  would  have  done 
quite  as  well,"  Catharine  pouted,  meeting  his  chil- 
dishness childishly,  as  he  beamingly  called  upon  her 
to  note  the  success  of  his  revision  of  her  handiwork. 
Without  noting  her  words  or  her  tone,  he  continued 
enthusiastically  to  poke  cones  into  the  opening  under 
the  tin  bucket. 

"Oh,  yes,  it  is  done  so,"  he  insisted  pouring  the 
two  gallon  bucket  full  of  water  and  taking  the 
coffee  out  of  the  cans  by  the  handfuls. 

"You  always  have  your  way?"  Catharine  asked 
yielding  her  theories  of  coffee  making  to  his  appro- 
priation of  the  performance. 

"It  is  the  way,"  John  argued.  "You'll  see,  it'll  be 
good."  And  she  did  see  when  the  time  to  drink  it 
arrived,  that  it  was  supremely  good.       For  the 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  89 

present,  she  turned  to  assist  Fred  in  the  squeezing 
of  lemons. 

"What  a  delightful  boy  John  is,"  she  mused. 
Everyone  called  him  John  and  Catharine  used  the 
given  name  thoughtlessly. 

"Well,  yes,  at  a  picnic,"  Fred  assented. 

"Don't  you  like  him?"  Catharine  queried. 

"Too  many  things  come  his  way." 

"He  don't  have  to  bait  his  hook  when  he  goes 
fishing?" 

"No,  not  even  cast  his  line,"  Fred  added. 

"Then  it  must  be,  he's  a  bait  in  himself.  Some 
people  are." 

"He  seems  to  be,"  Fred  admitted. 

"It  isn't  envy?"  Catharine  looked  up  archly. 

"No,  it  isn't  envy,"  when  Fred  spoke  the  truth  he 
emphasized  it.  It  was  for  what  followed  that  he 
laughed  with  his  sneer.  "John  disappointed  me 
very  sorely  at  one  time.  He  wounded  my  delicately 
discriminating  sense  of  honor." 

"Oh,  you  had  standards  of  virtue  for  John?" 

"And  he  did  a  thing  I  wouldn't  have  done  myself," 
Fred  stated  it  as  an  extreme  accusation.  "I  will 
even  slander  my  friends,  you  see." 

Catharine  pressed  her  palms  together  over  a 
lemon.  The  open  tenderness  of  her  glance  was  a 
solace  and  a  goading  pain  to  the  man. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  would  not  have  done  what  he 
did." 

"Kitty!    Kitty!    Come  see,"  Margie  called. 

Catharine  poured  some  water  from  the  bucket 


90  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

over  her  fingers,  wiped  them  on  the  tissue  paper 
from  around  the  lemons  and  obeyed  the  summons. 

Under  the  supervision  of  Mrs.  Warner,  the  older 
women  had  spread  a  long  white  cloth  almost  ban- 
quet fashion,  and  arranged  the  courses  easily  ac- 
cessible upon  the  surrounding  rocks.  Margie  and 
Henry  had  fashioned  place  cards  of  birch  bark, 
gathered  ferns  and  mariposas,  garnished  and  deco- 
rated. Catharine  stood  with  Henry  while  Margie 
ran  to  reproduce  an  effect  that  had  been  destroyed 
by  a  misplaced  rock. 

"You  have  made  it  beautiful,  you  and  Margie. 
Margie  is  the  talented  Paine,"  she  said  thoughtfully, 
"and  she  will  be  beautiful."  She  was  feeling  with 
a  vague  regret  for  Henry  that  the  woman  who  could 
complete  his  life  should  be  fair  and  gifted. 

"She  is  a  charming  child"  he  agreed  carelessly. 
He  was  not  looking  at  the  child.  What  Catharine 
saw  in  his  face  was  not  a  comprehension  of  ought 
that  had  prompted  her  words,  but  it  stirred  in  her  a 
keener  desire  that  he  might  have  had  what  she  could 
never  give  him. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  they  had  climbed  a  pinnacle 
height  where  a  lone  pine  tree  seemed  to  have  forced 
its  way  up  through  a  crevice  and  in  gaunt  isolation, 
triumphed  above  the  barrenness  around.  Catharine 
dropped  down  with  her  back  against  its  trunk,  smil- 
ing and  struggling  for  breath,  clasped  her  hands 
across  her  knee  and  looked  into  the  gorge  beneath. 
A  little  further  up  a  narrowing  of  the  sides  and  an 
inward  curve,  interposed  a  wall,  behind  which  most 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  91 

of  the  picnicers  had  departed  for  a  tramp.  The 
mingled  notes  of  their  voices  were  dying  into  indis- 
tinctness. Far,  far  below  was  the  tumble  of  rocks 
and  the  sometimes  stream.  Here  and  there  a  wood- 
ed spot  nestled  within  a  stockade  of  stone  or  a  sin- 
gle pine  held  itself  unguarded,  and  evidently  supe- 
rior to  nearby  source  of  nourishment.  Margie  and 
Walter  were  wading  in  the  water  adventurously 
feeling  for  greater  depths.  Her  mother  lay  in  the 
hammock  and  Mrs.  Allen,  sitting  on  a  carriage  seat, 
leaning  on  the  pillows  against  the  tree  in  front,  read 
to  her  or  talked.  Henry  threw  himself  on  the 
smooth  surface  of  the  rock  and  looked  at  the  sky  or 
at  Catharine  or  at  both  in  the  same  upward  glance. 
His  large  white  hand  broke  the  dried  pine  needles 
between  the  fingers.  From  the  children  and  her 
mother,  the  girl's  eyes  shifted  to  the  face  below  her. 
At  its  message  she  would  have  turned  away;  but  a 
persistency  in  her  nature  had  fostered  a  habit  of 
restrain  before  any  impulse  of  timorous  withdrawal. 

"Do  you  take  it  in?"  she  asked  steadily.  "Do  you 
see  how  tauntingly  wild  and  strong  it  all  is?  How 
surpassingly  beautiful  ?" 

"I  only  see  that  you  are  beautiful,"  he  answered. 

"I  beautiful!"  Again  there  was  no  coquetry  in 
her  manner.  She  accepted  the  honestly  given  tri- 
bute joyously.  Yet  from  another  man  it  would  have 
shamed  her  as  if  what  she  so  manifestly  lacked  were 
so  important  that  it  must  be  lyingly  attributed  to 
her.  It  was  an  accepted  verity  in  the  Paine  house- 
hold that  she  was  uncomely  of  person  but  that  the 


92  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

fact  was  of  little  moment. 

"Your  saying  it  is  like  a  prayer  bought  gift  of 
the  Gods,  better  than  the  thing  itself  thrown  in  with 
the  unasked  bounty  of  nature  ever  could  be.  Can 
you  locate  it?    I  know  where  it  isn't." 

"It  radiates,"  he  replied  solemnly. 

She  smiled  down  into  the  canyon.  Margie  dis- 
covering a  pool,  slipped  and  doused  her  skirts.  Wal- 
ter was  pulling  her  out  hilariously  sympathetic  at 
the  predicament.  Slowly  Catharine  brought  her 
eyes  to  rest  upon  the  man,  held  them  there  steadfast 
though  there  was  a  tremor  in  her  strong  lips  that 
made  him  draw  his  breath.  Yes,  he  had  expected 
to  be  loved.  No  momentous  craving  had  ever  been 
denied  satisfaction.  But  now, — he  did  not  know,  yet 
he  might  have  known,  that  against  the  attainment, 
it  was  a  paltry  desire  he  had  cherished. 

Margie  and  Walter  had  come  out  and  dried  their 
clothes  in  the  sun,  found  four  stockings  and,  after 
much  controversy,  got  them  sorted  into  pairs. 
Finally,  the  two  women  and  the  children  went  up 
the  canyon  and  out  of  sight. 

"We  have  the  whole  canyon  to  ourselves,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  answered.  Her  hand  lay  dormantly 
responsive  in  his. 

"Catharine,  you  are  deliciously  terrifying,"  he 
felt  her  hand  in  his  like  a  great  still  emotion  asking 
for  release  and  to  be  appropriated. 

She  drew  it  away  when  she  spoke.  He  did  not 
help  to  relieve  her  of  her  burden  of  feeling.  It  was 
the  free  output  seeking  only  an  unbarred  avenue  of 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  98 

escape.     She  touched  him  lightly  on  the  shoulder. 

"Listen  Henry!"  The  music  of  her  voice  was  a 
low  contralto.  "The  wind  in  the  pines!  It  is  the 
first  time  in  my  life  I  have  heard  it  all  peaceful 
neither  coming  nor  going  but  just  at  rest  making 
music  in  the  needles.  Down  in  Rapid  it  rushes 
ceaselessly  out  of  the  prairie  on  to  the  mountains, 
and — it  has  always  seemed  to  me — stirs  from  a  bot- 
tomless pit  of  unrest  gathering  into  a  fierce  cry  of 
unused  power;  till  in  its  highest  rage,  there  is  a 
note  of  joy  in  the  freedom  of  wild  abandonment. 
When  I  was  here  a  child-girl,  from  somewhere  deep- 
er than  I  had  known,  my  nature  answered  it.  It 
must  have  been  my  cradle  song.  I  have  not  my  true 
identity  without  it." 

Will  you  be  another  Catharine  when  I  take  you 
East?"  he  asked. 

"The  canyons  swallow  up  the  wind,"  she  said. 
"We  have  plugged  the  bottomless  pit  of  unrest  with- 
in me.    I  have  found  the  stoppage." 

The  look  in  her  face  drew  the  man's  arms  around 
her.  He  strained  her  close  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
surmount  the  passion  in  her  eyes  and  voice.  She 
only  smoothed  back  the  fair  hair  from  his  forehead 
with  her  calm,  deft  hand. 


CHAPTER  VI 


JOHN  came  into  their  living  room,  sometimes 
called  the  library,  sometimes  the  back  par- 
lor, and  walked  across  to  Mrs.  Allen's  desk. 
It  sat  open  revealing  orderly  filled  pigeon  holes.  Her 
pen  and  pencil  lay  in  a  silver  tray  and  in  front 
rested  two  twin  prayer  books  in  modest  black 
leather  bindings.  He  opened  the  nearest  and  read 
on  the  fly  leaf, 

"John  Allen,  from 
The  one  who  loves  him  best." 
He  realized  the  truth  of  the  phrase  as  he  turned  the 
leaves  of  the  prayer  book  through  his  fingers  ner- 
vously. During  the  six  years  of  their  life  together, 
he  had  been  subject  to  intermittent  attacks  of  ac- 
tive devotion  to  Mrs.  Allen  when,  had  the  existing 
relation  not  precluded  it,  he  would  have  courted  and 
counted  it  a  blessed  attainment  to  have  married  her. 
In  the  absence  of  any  goal  to  be  reached,  any  obs- 
tacle to  be  overcome,  there  had  been  nothing  to  im- 
press, to  leave  as  a  permanent  reminder  on  his  cons- 
ciousness the  development  to  florescence  and  the 
succeeding  seed  growth  of  such  emotional  blossom- 
ings.   Yet  they  had  not  altogether  lacked  lustrous 

94 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  95 

climaxes.  Under  the  emphasis  of  external  defer- 
ence toward  her  and  through  the  medium  of  her  un- 
failing thought  for  him,  he  would  perceive  her  place 
of  eminence  in  the  town,  and  a  winningly  boyish 
pride  in  her  and  in  his  possession  of  her  swelled  in- 
to a  manifestation  that  approached  the  publicity  of 
acclaim.  The  harvest  of  each  season  of  effusive 
love  was  an  aggravation  of  the  woman's  guarded 
tenderness  for  him.  It  frequently  followed  upon 
an  equally  unrecorded  enthusiasm  for  some  other 
woman,  when,  with  a  sense  of  virtuous  abnegation 
he  observed  the  young  brides  who  were  being 
brought  back  from  various  localities  more  or  less 
remote.  At  present  he  was  "in  love"  with  Mrs. 
Allen  and  to  his  own  satisfaction  eliminated  all  des- 
crepancy  of  age  by  feeling  that,  though  young  in 
years,  he  was  old  in  experience.  He  turned  back 
the  cover  of  the  other  prayer  book,  and  seeing  that 
the  fly  leaf  was  clean,  took  up  the  pen,  dipped  it  in 
the  ink  and  paused.  He  was  not  quick  at  fitting  a 
sentiment  with  words,  not  because  his  vocabulary 
was  limited  but  because  the  sentiment  had  seldom 
been  submitted  to  clarifying  sincerity.  He  wrote, 
"Mrs.  Allen,  my  wife,  from 
John." 
He  had  always  called  her  Mrs.  Allen.  The  first  time 
it  was  the  magnanimous  assertion,  the  second  an 
embarrassed  question.  "Why  not  just  Mrs.  Allen?" 
had  been  the  answer.  So  they  had  let  it  stand.  It 
had  come  to  the  public  to  hold  a  quaint  appropriate- 
ness; to  them,  when  the  moment  allowed  it,  a  con- 


W  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

notation  of  the  nearest  intimacy."  John  easily 
thought  of  her  as  his  wife.  In  the  re-action  periods 
against  the  trivial  qualities  of  young  femininity  and 
its  attractions,  he  observed  that  she  performed  the 
economic  and  social  functions  of  wifeliness  in  a 
highly  superior  manner.  But  to  grasp  the  actuality 
of  himself  as  a  husband  was  a  little  more  difficult. 
Small  stress  had  been  laid  upon  that  side  of  the  re- 
lation. For  some  seconds  he  scrutinized  what  he 
had  written  and  not  finding  it  quite  adequate,  added, 
"with  love,"  to  the  last  line.  Then  he  walked  up 
and  down  the  room.  John  had  no  power  of  repose. 
His  never  mitigated  restless  activity  was  at  once  a 
cause  and  a  residual  throwing  off  of  his  commercial 
timeliness.  On  occasions  of  presumable  relaxation, 
Mrs.  Allen  gave  it  the  appearance  of  productivity 
by  feeding  the  machinery  of  his  body  with  tran- 
siently renumerative  objects  of  exertion. 

Now  she  came  down  the  steps ;  and,  turning  from 
the  large  window  of  the  front  parlor,  he  watched 
her.  If  she  was  not  altogether  graceful,  she  had  an 
air  of  the  distinguished.  There  was  a  matronly 
heaviness  of  person,  a  disciplined  firmness  of  fea- 
ture, an  assured  slowness  of  movement.  Her  black 
gown  fitted  closely  but  was  of  yielding  stuff,  and  soft 
white  was  around  the  neck  and  wrists.  She  went 
straight  to  the  desk  and  John  followed.  As  she 
lifted  first  one  then  the  other  of  the  covers,  he 
put  his  hand  on  her  shoulder.  When  she  turned 
to  hand  him  the  one  that  contained  his  name,  he 
drew  her  to  him  and  they  kissed.     She  laid  her 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  97 

gloved  hand  on  his  coat  sleeve. 

"Boy!"  she  said.  Her  fingers  tightened  on  his 
arm  and  her  voice  caught  with  a  struggle.  They 
were  to  be  confirmed  at  the  first  confirmation  ser- 
vice in  the  little  stone  chapel ;  and,  after  a  night  of 
battle,  she  would  offer  up  the  most  precious  fruit  of 
all  her  sins.  "Do  you  remember  the  other  time  we 
stood  at  the  altar?"  she  demanded. 

He  shifted  in  discomfort  from  one  foot  to  the 
other. 

"I  can  hardly  forget  it  when  you  are  always  with 
me." 

"Yet,  by  it,  I  should  not  wish  to  hold  you  always. 
I  should  always  want  you,  I  think,  as  a  mother 
wants  her  son.  I  love  you  in  a  thousand  ways.  I 
do  not  desire  to  think  of  myself,"  Mrs.  Allen  insist- 
ed. 

"You  don't  want  a  divorce,  do  you?"  he  asked 
jocosely. 

"No,  but  for  your  sake  I  would  sue  for  one.  I 
bound  you.  If  the  time  should  come  I  would  release 
you." 

"Ah,"  he  saw  now  at  thirty  that  six  years  ago  he 
was  a  boy  and  she  had  bound  him.  "Well,  may  be 
the  match  was  of  your  making,  but  you  may  be  sure, 
old  girl,  that  I'll  stand  for  it  as  long  as  you  do." 

"I  don't  hold  you  to  that  either,"  she  said,  "but, 
John,"  a  foreboding  had  come  not  from  any  specific 
aberration  of  affection  but  from  a  general  manifes- 
tation of  susceptibility.  "John,"  she  pleaded, 
"When  yx)u  tire  of  me,  it  will  be  because  there  is 


98  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

someone  else.    Only  let  it  be  a  worthy  woman." 

He  might  have  told  her  that  the  worthy  woman 
would  never  consider  him  except  for  the  passing  cor- 
diality of  the  dance,  the  dinner  party,  or  the  re- 
ception room.  He  was  only  angered,  "Well,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "having  made  one  pre-eminently  success- 
ful choice,  if  I  should  make  another,  I  guess  I'd  have 
enough  sense  to  be  the  judge." 

"Be  sure,  John,  you  do  not  want  to  be  free.  I'll 
never  die  opportunely,"  she  had  played  with  the  no- 
tion of  that  greatest  of  all  casualities,  and  dismissed 
it.  It  is  he  who  cares  more  for  his  life  than  for  an- 
other's who  builds  for  the  other's  welfare  on  the 
possibility  of  his  own  death.  Mrs.  Allen  would  have 
been  ready  to  die.  "The  sum  of  my  life's  problem 
will  be  written.  I  do  not  want  it  to  comprise  some 
grievous  wrong  to  you." 

It  must  be  admitted  that,  covertly,  by  the  subtle 
ways  of  intervention  of  which  the  worldy  wise  wo- 
man is  the  most  consumate  master,  she  had  kept 
John  in  unsuspecting  tutelage  in  all  his  social  rela- 
tions. In  the  beginning  it  had  been  selfishly  to  hold 
him.  Recently,  she  had  thought  there  were  higher 
motives.  She  protected  him  from  the  designing. 
His  latest  flirtation  had  taxed  her  greviously.  Safe- 
ly muffled  in  far  reaching  generalizations,  she  had 
thrown  out  her  illuminating  hints.  She  had  built 
up  a  multitude  of  diversions  in  other  directions.  In 
a  fervor  of  anxiety,  not  that  she  might  lose  him 
but  that  he  might  be  appropriated  by  a  scheming 
woman  under  her  very  eyes,  she  strained  the  limits 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  99 

of  her  adroit  deception,  which  like  other  arts  at  the 
summit  of  highest  perfection,  expresses  itself  in  un- 
challengeable simplicity  and  directness.  But  fortu- 
nately, John  passed  quickly  from  an  incensed  intima- 
tion of  the  recondite  purpose  behind  the  manifest 
openness,  to  a  shamed  acknowledgment  of  benefit  de- 
rived. After  modestly  worded  vows  of  everlasting 
soul  allegiance,  the  object  of  his  infatuation  preci- 
pitately deserted  him  and  flaunted  a  like  absorption 
in  someone  else.  Two  months  before  Mrs.  Allen 
would  not  have  made  the  offer  she  now  made.  It 
might  have  received  more  weighty  consideration. 
The  time  was  apropos  to  her  to  give  him  up  when 
she  did  not  hold  him  but  he  clung  to  her.  It  voiced 
no  defeat,  no  grasp  on  the  results  of  victory. 

"Why  should  we  be  married,"  she  argued.  "I  could 
be  your  housekeeper  if  we  wanted  to  live  together. 
I  am  almost  fifty.  You  are  only  at  least  a  young 
man.  To  sever  the  bond  in  this  way  might  save 
us  the  retribution  of  pain." 

It  would  have  taken  the  maturer  genius  of  a  deep- 
er self  probing  nature  for  the  man  to  have  compre- 
hended her  meaning.  He  only  saw  how  laughably 
unheard-of  it  would  be  to  divorce  a  woman  and  live 
with  her  as  his  housekeeper,  and  how  overwhelm- 
ingly lonely  it  would  be  to  live  without  Mrs.  Allen. 
"Well,  if  it's  really  left  to  me,  I'll  have  you  know 
that  when  I'll  think  of  marrying  is  about  twenty 
years  after  you  are  in  the  grave.  As  for  a  divorce, 
I'm  surprised  that  with  your  high  ideas  of  life,  you 
would  seriously  entertain  such  an  idea,  and  just  be- 


100  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

fore  our  confirmation." 

His  arm  was  very  strong  around  her  waist.  But 
she  did  not  rest  against  him.  She  had  never  rested. 
"At  thirty,  after  six  years  of  daily  intercourse, 
you  take  me  to  be  your  wedded  wife,  or  rather  fore- 
go the  marriage  relation  for  the  privilege  of  my 
closer  friendship?"  she  questioned. 

"Pshaw!"  John  answered  to  the  last  phrase  and 
to  the  first  one,  "I  guess  I  do  and  I  think  you  are 
the  dandiest  wife  any  man  ever  had." 

She  never  forgot  the  heartiness  of  the  avowal. 

"Boy!  My  boy!"  she  whispered.  With  his  vow 
between  them,  they  went  out  together,  to  their  con- 
firmation service. 

The  day  was  a  wonderful  one  to  the  woman.  It 
was  the  little  chapel  she  had  helped  to  build.  On  the 
altar  was  the  cloth  she  had  worked,  and  before  it 
the  lilies  she  had  nourished  and  arranged.  Beside 
her  knelt  the  boy  who  had  kept  pure,  unsullied  in 
the  moral  laxity  of  the  town.  In  her  humility  she 
did  not  say  that  she  had  done  it.  At  least  she  had 
not  contaminated  him.  The  sweet  face  of  Mrs. 
Paine  smiled  up  at  her  in  the  confidence  of  devoted 
friendship.  All  this  was  undreamed  of  when  the 
stage  coach  brought  her  into  Rapid  six  years  before. 
The  deeper  significance  of  her  chance  was  revealed 
as  each  achievement  pointed  her  to  a  better  ambi- 
tion. By  some  infallible  touch  stone  of  her  nature, 
she  had  ever  emulated  and  herself  attracted  such 
women  as  Mrs.  Paine. 

After  the  service,  as  she  and  John  left  tiie  church, 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  101 

Catharine  and  her  mother  preceded  them.  When 
they  came  into  the  bright  warmth  of  the  clear  sum- 
mer air,  Mrs.  Allen  did  not  see  the  girl  but  turned  to 
the  woman.  The  eyes  of  both  were  brimming  with 
an  intimation  of  the  beatific  as  they  held  each  other'3 
hands  and  kissed.  Catharine  in  the  mean  time 
shook  John's  hand  pref  unctorily  and  remarked  upon 
the  success  of  the  floral  decorations. 

"I  can't  help  it,  mamma",  she  stated  apologetical- 
ly, opening  the  gate  of  their  own  yard,  "but  the 
Aliens  invariably  excite  in  me  malicious  curiosity. 
I  am  incensed  too,  that,  when  I  am  with  her,  I  can 
no  more  keep  from  being  deferential  than  a  Briton 
could  from  paying  homage  to  the  Prince  of  Wales." 

"I  think,  dear,  the  analogy  does  not  reach  very 
far.  In  one  case  it  is  a  homage  to  what  he  could 
not  throw  away,  in  the  other  to  what  has  been  won 
in  spite  of  calumny." 

"Calumny!"  Catharine  repeated  vehemently. 
"Rather  well  grounded  tradition.  It's  her  success 
that  enrages  me." 

"Be  not  quick  to  anger,"  Mrs.  Paine  quoted.  She 
had  a  habit  of  throwing  out  Biblical  phrases  which 
to  Catharine,  in  a  state  of  excitement,  unfailingly 
appeared  malapropos  and  added  fuel  to  her  wrath. 
Frequently  she  only  recognizes  'the  source  by  the 
sacred  form  of  the  pronoun  or  the  verb.  But  upon 
catching  the  ear  marks,  she  retired  to  calm  what 
she  candidly  condemned  in  herself  as  an  unreason- 
ably ruffled  temper. 


CHAPTER  VII 


CATHARINE  climbed  briskly  up  the  steep  slope 
of  Cemetery  Hill.  Half  way  to  the  top  she 
stopped  to  get  strength  to  go  on ;  and  turned 
that  the  wind  might  blow  her  hair  from  her 
face.  She  placed  one  foot  firmly  behind,  leaned  for- 
ward and  felt  the  onward  current  of  air.  Henry 
wondered  that  she  came  when  there  was  such  a 
gale  and  she  laughed  that  he  could  think  that  she 
might  be  deterred  because  of  it.  And  he  thought  he 
knew  it  all  in  knowing  that  she  came  to  meet  him- 
self. She  put  her  back  to  the  stiff  breeze  and  mount- 
ed up  the  last  pitch  of  ascent  without  a  pause; 
and,  arriving  precipitately,  was  almost  tilted  over 
the  rim  of  the  projecting  ridge.  She  sat  down,  took 
off  her  cap,  put  its  edge  securely  under  her  heel, 
rested  her  elbow  on  her  knee,  her  chin  in  her  hand 
and  worked  it  out  in  regard  to  Rapid.  There  it  lay 
below  her,  the  broad  metropolitan  streets,  and  the 
houses,  situated  at  intervals,  making  scragged 
fringes  on  either  side.  The  cotton  woods  and 
maples  which  were  uniformly  planted  in  straight 
rows  before  the  houses,  and  trimmed  to  the  top 
in  anticipation  of  a  more  umbrageous  growth,  at 


102 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  103 

present  fluttered  their  little  tufts  of  leafage  lustily. 
Yes,  she  had  come  to  her  decision  about  Rapid. 
True,  often  there  were  deviations  from  it,  but  here 
alone  on  her  vantage  point  of  observation,  guided  by 
her  innate  sanity,  free  from  the  domination  of  busi- 
ness maturity,  she  recurred  to  her  independent  con- 
clusion of  the  day  before.  Two  nights  ago  her 
father  brought  a  "promoter"  to  dinner  and  last 
night  there  were  Kentucky  men  with  money  to  in- 
vest whom  the  promoter  had  intoxicated  with  vivid 
presentation  of  possible  returns  from  speculation. 
Their  creed  had  been  that  wealth  was  acquired  by 
insight  and  daring  and  it  left  no  room  for  a  dis- 
crimination between  insight  and  credulity.  The 
plausibility  of  the  city  laid  out  on  charts  became  a 
guarantee  of  its  translation  into  brick  and  stone. 
As  if  the  merit  of  the  architect's  drawing  could  of 
itself  occasion  the  building  of  the  edifice.  "No," 
Catharine  argued,  "the  temple  rises  to  the  need  of 
worshippers,  an  auspicious  site  for  a  mart  cannot 
of  itself  bring  traffic."  The  second  railroad  had 
gone  to  Deadwood.  Deadwood  was  a  horrid  town 
built  in  a  gulch  straight  up  the  sides  of  the  moun- 
tain. But  the  smelters,  the  chlorination  plants,  the 
stamp  mills  thrived  at  Deadwood  because  the  gold 
was  mined  in  the  rocks  near  at  hand.  Rapid  was 
very  busy  borrowing  on  visionary  security  to  invest 
in  city  lots  bound  round  with  prairie.  But  how 
could  there  be  but  one  result  from  all  that.  Catha- 
rine did  not  suspect  the  collapse  of  the  "boom"  any 
more  than,  with  the  blood  flowing  swift  through  her 


104  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

healthy  young  body,  she  could  have  conceived  the 
blight  of  disease.  By  the  same  well  balanced  im- 
agination, she  could  not  entertain  the  likelihood  of  a 
ten  foot  growth  of  regetation  in  a  single  night.  "I 
don't  believe  but  I  shall  be  here,  loving,  doubting, 
she  thought  "but  I  shall  be  here,  loving,  doubting, 
working,  accepting,  planning  when  all  the  schemers 
have  deserted  for  new  fields  of  plunder.  And  yet 
would  she  be  here?"  She  paused  there  with  medita- 
tive stillness.  A  few  days  since  her  father  had  re- 
marked that  he'd  rather  have  a  daughter  marry  an 
honest  rancher  than  a  fellow  stuffed  full  of  book 
knowledge  who  couldn't  manage  the  men  with  whom 
he  had  to  deal.  With  hot  face,  she  had  stood  up  to 
flee  at  the  end  of  her  retort,  "What  honest  man  can 
hold  his  own  while  others  who  claim  to  be  honest 
give  credence  to  the  insidious  disparagements  of 
those  they  know  are  scoundrels." 

"I  reckon  you'll  find  out  some  time  it  takes  more 
than  honesty  to  support  a  family,"  had  followed  her 
as  she  ran  fearfully,  from  what  her  anger  might 
bring  to  her  lips. 

In  the  same  terror  of  herself  again  she  sprang  to 
her  feet  and  began  her  walk.  The  wind  from  behind 
pressed  her  on  faster  than  she  could  possibly  go 
forward  by  the  process  of  putting  one  foot  before 
the  other.  So  there  was  the  necessity  of  holding 
herself  back  while  she  carried  herself  forward.  At 
the  same  time  her  cap  was  constantly  dislodged  from 
her  head  and  thrown  over  her  nose.  Taking  it  off 
she  caught  her  golf  cape  in  a  tight  grip,  and  let  the 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  105 

wind  blow  her.  The  sting  of  outraged  loyality  that 
had  brought  her  to  her  feet,  was  carried  out  on  the 
wind  and,  delighted  she  was  hurried  on  to  her  lover. 
The  mesa  stretched  out  before  her  for  a  mile  or 
more;  to  the  casual  glance,  smooth  as  a  well  kept 
lawn.  Cemetery  Hill  was  a  long,  narrow  elevation 
that  protruded  into  the  circle  of  foot  hills  surround- 
ing the  town.  The  descent  on  all  sides  was  steep 
and  abrupt.  Since  the  burial  ground  at  the  end 
toward  which  she  walked  had  been  abandoned,  no 
one  mounted  it  except  for  vigorous  exercise  or  the 
enjoyment  of  a  scenic  view  of  a  not  very  popular 
sort.  Catharine  felt  a  proprietorship  in  the  locality, 
and  with  the  exception  of  a  few  grazing  cattle  had 
never  yet  encountered  a  trespasser.  Henry  shared 
her  claims  by  very  natural  sufferance.  Below  her 
on  the  right  the  prairie  rolled  off,  broken  only  by  one 
lorn  tree ;  and  on  her  left,  except  for  the  railroad,  the 
station,  the  red  water  tank,  the  Park  hotel  and  a  few 
widely  scattered  living  houses,  a  like  barren  stretch 
reached  across  to  the  rise  where  the  old 
stage  coach  route  had  been.  On  this  side  the  valley 
road  follows  the  base  of  the  plateau  and  just  across 
where  it  rounded  the  futherest  end  was  the  School 
of  Mines.  Well  into  the  middle  of  the  mesa  where 
the  landmarks  below  were  lost  to  view,  it  was  diffi- 
cult to  be  sure  where  one  was  coming  out.  Catharine 
always  walked  toward  a  tall  white  tomb  stone.  But 
she  seldom  reached  it  before  she  ceased  to  be  con- 
scious of  the  marble  obelisk  and  saw  instead  only  the 
swinging  form  of  Henry's  tall  lithe  figure.    To-day 


106  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

she  frequently  turned  to  face  the  wind  and  rest,  and 
it  was  standing  thus  that  she  felt  him  coming,  and 
waited  with  her  back  to  him  as  he  hastened  nearer, 
till  his  arm  was  around  her.  Leaning  her  head  on 
his  shoulder,  she  closed  her  eyes  and  received  the  em- 
brace of  the  wind  and  of  his  arms.  Then  with  her 
left  hand  she  drew  his  right  from  around  her  and 
held  it  as  they  walked  on.  His  long  graceful  strides 
had  carried  him  over  the  mesa  quicker  than  usual. 
His  arms  had  seemed  the  least  bit  stronger  when  he 
touched  her.  The  wind  had  brought  a  pink  glow  to 
his  fair  cheeks.  It  deepened  as  he  looked  at  Cath- 
arine with  an  exhilaration  of  perfect  trust  as  to  how 
she  would  receive  the  question  with  which  presently 
he  must  confront  her. 

It  was  October  now  and  they  were  to  have  been 
married  in  the  early  spring.  So  much  a  part  of  his 
thoughts  it  had  become  that,  in  accepting  what  must 
prevent  it,  the  reality  of  it  was  still  present.  For 
a  moment  it  seemed  he  would  not  show  her  the  letter 
in  his  vest  pocket  and  then  he  knew  he  must.  She 
was  smiling  in  the  face  of  the  wind,  her  flying  hair 
tossed  back  from  around  her  happy  face.  The 
clasp  of  his  hand  lent  animation  but  the  decisive 
vigor  of  her  step  was  her  own.  Reaching  the  town- 
ward  descent,  they  paused.  There  was  a  lull  in  the 
wind  and  across  the  town,  behind  Hangman's  Peak 
the  sinking  sun  had  left  the  hues  of  molten  metals. 
She  sank  down  and  he  seated  himself  beside  her. 

"Oh!  I  love  it, — and  you",  she  pressed  his  hand 
against  her  cheek  and  held  herself  aloft.    "How  can 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  107 

a  woman  deny  and  trifle  witii  her  love.  You  must 
know  sometime.  To  conceal  would  only  be  to  wield 
the  shackles  of  a  secret  bondage.  I  can  love,  love 
but  I  will  not  be  bound." 

"Catharine !  My  wonderful  Catharine !"  In  spite 
of  her  words  it  was  the  old  way  of  woman  in  love 
At  his  move  she  leaned  against  him  with  the  still- 
ness that  is  more  eloquent  than  words  or  caresses. 

"For  all  that,"  he  laughed,  "you  only  suffer  your- 
self to  be  kissed." 

She  drew  away  and  would  have  arisen,  but  he  de- 
tained her.  The  brilliancy  behind  Hangman's  Peak 
was  deepening  into  darkness.  He  took  the  letter 
from  his  pocket  and  laid  it  open  on  her  knee.  She 
smoothed  it  carefully  and  her  eyes  ran  down  the  first 
page,  her  lips  parting  with  satisfaction  and  pleasure. 
It  was  an  appreciation  of  Henry's  scholarship  as  an 
undergraduate.  She  turned  the  page,  read  it  and  the 
next,  to  the  end ;  even  then  did  not  lift  her  eyes,  but 
sat  gazing  across  to  Hangman's  P^ak.  All  that  was 
remaining  of  the  splendor  and  brightness  was  a  dull 
glow  along  the  outline  of  the  heavy  massive  ridge, 
looming  huge  and  impressive  in  the  dusk.  She  took  it 
in, — it  and  the  meaning  of  the  message  before  her. 
It  was  the  offer  of  four  years  of  foreign  study  and 
then  a  position.  It  was  the  vocation  to  which  he 
was  adapted.  For  success  in  Rapid,  there  was  re- 
quired a  broad  grasp  of  soulless  schemes,  a  quick  wit 
at  detecting  and  clearing  away  the  snares  of  petty 
tricksters  which,  if  ignored,  must  at  some  time  trip 
him  disastrously.    He  had  not  suspected  the  possi- 


108  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

bility  of  failure,  but  she  had  already  met  it  for  him 
and  gloried  in  the  inadequacy  that  made  him  an  easy 
prey.  Now  he  would  never  know.  This  other  open- 
ing was  opportune.  But  Henry  was  without  money 
and  during  the  years  of  study  could  not  be  encum- 
bered with  a  wife. 

He  began  to  speak  tossing  out  his  thoughts  as 
they  came.  He  would  gladly  throw  away  his  chance 
but  there  was  his  duty  to  himself,  to  her,  to  fix  their 
lives  on  the  highest  plain.  Four  years  would  pass 
quickly, — no,  it  was  an  eternity.  He  bent  to  her 
waiting.  One  word  of  protest  and  the  wires  would 
have  flashed  back  a  prompt  refusal. 

She  sat  without  a  sign  comprehending  far  into  the 
future.  For  her,  the  night  had  descended  in  the 
midst  of  noon  day.  Rapid  was  a  cage  too  small  for 
her  to  exercise  her  parts.  With  Henry,  and  a  home 
of  her  own,  she  could  have  worked  out  the  way,  have 
suffered,  perhaps  and  given  of  herself  to  some  efl^ect. 
Four  years!  It  was  as  long  as  the  college  course. 
For  her  occupation,  only  church  fairs,  card  games 
with  Mildred,  Fred,  and  John  Allen;  gathering 
flowers  and  reading  fairy  stories  with  Margie ;  now 
and  then  an  aimless  pleasure  trip.  She  had  not  des- 
pised them  as  diversions ;  but  she  had  the  energy  for 
a  woman's  work  and  all  this  incidentally.  She  had 
the  energy  to  buy  and  sell,  make  a  fortune,  lose  it, 
and  go  to  work  to  retrieve  the  calamity.  She  could 
not  span  the  four  years.  She  too  had  her  limitations 
There  was  no  potion  that  might  put  'the  prin- 
cess to  sleep  till  the  prince  returned.    Henry  would 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  109 

be  growing  beyond  her.  She  would  have  no  beauty, 
no  distinctively  social  charm  by  which  to  claim  him. 
It  was  never  through  these  avenues,  her  actual  bless- 
ings had  come  to  her. 

Laying  her  hand  on  his  arm,  she  lifted  her  head, 
lifted  it  as  if  it  were  a  leaden  weight.  He  read  the 
cost  of  the  decision,  read  it  thrilled  with  its  tribute 
to  their  love,  with  a  swift  flood  of  wonder  and  res- 
ponse, but  without  inquisitive  penetration;  as  we 
read  the  agony  of  the  passing  stranger,  forced  to  ap- 
preciation by  the  inherent  tensity,  then  go  our  ways. 
"Of  course  you  will  go",  she  said,  "we  have  no  right 
deliberately  to  chose  anything  except  what  we  think 
must  lead  to  the  highest  achievement."  She  looked 
at  him  out  of  the  depth  of  her  woman's  thought  and 
he  felt  he  was  on  holy  ground.  "Not  only  for  our- 
selves but  for  those  who  might  have  the  right  to  call 
us  to  account  for  what  they  are,  we  must  work  out 
our  best  selves.  We  shall  not  love  each  other  in  the 
same  way,  after  four  years,  but  it  must  be  a  better 
love  that  larger  men  and  women  give  each  other." 

There  was  no  enthusiasm  in  her  voice.  She  found 
no  ecstacy  in  sacrifice.  To  her,  in  that  brief  moment 
of  decision,  life  had  become  an  inevitable  sequence 
where  one  must  take  each  step  into  joy  or  sorrow 
without  hesitation. 

"I  knew  you  wouldn't  let  us  off",  he  answered,  see- 
ing before  him  the  four  years  of  exacting  application 
and  at  the  end  the  reward  of  success, — ^his  success 
that  was  to  include  them  both.  He  put  his  arm 
around  her  tenderly.    She  was  to  share  it  all. 


110  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

Hangman's  Peak  was  a  cloud  of  black  against 
a  colorless  sky.  There  was  a  sitr  of  air,  then  a 
swift  rush.  She  caught  him  and  his  gentle- 
ness brought  no  commanding  peace.  "Hear  it, 
Henry,"  and  her  low  voice  was  tuned  to  its  wail. 
"The  bonds  are  broken.  It  is  from  the  bottomless 
pit  of  unrest." 


CHAPTER  VIII 


FATHER  may  I  come  in?"  Mr.  Paine  did  not 
answer  but  his  newspaper  dropped  to  the 
horizontal  and  he  surveyed  the  insistent 
figure  of  the  tall  girl  standing  in  the  doorway,  over 
the  top  of  his  glasses. 

At  this  Catharine  came  forward  and  stood  before 
him.  The  newspaper  descended  to  his  knees,  his 
eyes  to  the  compass  of  the  glass  lens,  and  he  waited 
plainly  on  the  defensive.  In  fact  Catharine  held 
something  the  position  of  an  obtrusive  creditor 
whom  for  reasons  justified  to  himself,  Mr.  Paine 
meant  to  turn  away  unsatisfied. 

"Have  you  decided  father?"  the  girl  demanded. 
Her  face  and  figure  were  passive  and  composed  but 
the  voice  betrayed  decided  effort  of  control.  The 
only  response  was  a  harassed  shifting  of  the  fine 
clear  eyes  behind  the  glass  lens.  His  strength 
against  hers  never  weakened  Catharine,  but  this 
persecuted  distress  tormented  her  into  a  sensation  of 
guilt  which  took  outward  expression  in  varied  forms. 
Now  she  returned  the  look  intensified  by  the  youth 
of  her  face.  Dropping  on  her  knees,  she  leaned  her 
head  against  the  arm  of  his  chair. 


Ul 


112  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"Can't  you  see,  father?"  she  pleaded,  "I  must  do 
something." 

There  was  no  emotional  response.  The  man 
hardened  his  heart.  He  had  been  a  good  father,  in 
times  past,  shielding  his  family  from  want  by  the 
most  strenuous  and  self  exacting  means,  till  at  last 
his  unswerving  morality  and  persistent  energy 
brought  them  into  toil-paid  luxury.  Then  his 
daughter  put  aside  his  offering  and  demanded  an 
unheard-of  thing. 

"It's  always  the  absurd  that  you  want,  Catharine", 
he  complained  with  the  air  of  overworded  indul- 
gence. If  it  were  music  or  painting,  the  sort  of 
thing  a  girl  ought  to  do,  but  medicine!" 

The  girl  straightened  herself,  "You  know,  father, 
I  worked  at  those  because  you  desired  it.  But  I 
couldn't  throw  away  my  energy  and  yours  on  the 
pretense.  Is  it  my  fault  I  have  no  talent?  It's  just 
because  I  am  a  Paine.  I  might  blame  you  for  what 
I  am.  But  I  don't.  I  am  too  glad  to  be  a  Paine. 
We've  looked  up  to  the  stars,  off  to  the  hills, 
'yearned  beyond  the  sky  line,*  and  all  that  from  the 
beginning  of  time.  But  we  haven't  paraded  our 
ideals  on  little  squares  of  canvas.  We  have  just 
handed  them  down  like  heir  looms,  bound  up  in  the 
Paine  consciousness,  from  father  to  son,  yes",  she 
said  with  bitterness,  "and  to  a  daughter.  It's  be- 
cause I'm  a  Paine  that  I  will  do  the  thing  I  can  do." 

"How  do  you  think  young  Burton  will  like  a  pro- 
fessional wife !"  he  asked  abruptly. 

Catharine  stood  inscrutable.    "You  know,  father 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  113 

Mr.  Burton  has  gone  to  Paris." 

Mr.  Paine  desired  further  elucidation  but  Cath- 
arine was  plainly  intrenched  behind  an  impregnable 
reserve.  There  seemed  to  be  no  immediate  demand 
for  continuing  the  conversation  and  Mr.  Paine  made 
his  usual  move  toward  closing  it.  "You  might  just 
as  well  give  it  up,  Catharine,  I  will  not  have  it. 
That  settles  the  matter",  and  he  fortified  himself  be- 
hind his  paper. 

"It  may  settle  this  father,  but  I  shall  think  of 
something  else  if  I  can't  study  medicine",  she  re- 
turned his  conclusive  tone,  "I  shall  teach  school, 
here  in  Rapid",  she  threatened. 

The  paper  descended  again,  and  Mr.  Paine  looked 
at  her  with  the  expression  of  his  original  greeting 
renewed.  He  saw  the  interview  with  startling 
variations  endlessly  repeated. 

"Why  did  I  ever  send  you  to  college?",  he  groaned. 

"Because  you  couldn't  keep  me  away.  Because  I 
won  the  high  school  scholarship  and  you  couldn't  let 
your  daughter  go  on  charity." 

"Yes",  he  answered,  "I  have  always  given  my 
children  anything  they  ought  to  have.  But  to  study 
medicine  isn't  what  a  woman  ought  to  do.  I  should 
have  the  right  to  decide." 

"Why?"  The  deliberateness  of  that  interrogation 
was  as  startling  an  inovation  of  argument  as  had 
ever  before  burst  from  her  lips  to  confound  and 
amaze. 

"Well,  I  am  your  father",  she  was  not  a  Paine  if 
she  held  slightingly  the  family  bond. 


114  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"Mamma  thinks  it  is  what  a  woman  should  do. 
She  is  my  mother !" 

"Very  well,  go  to  your  mother  about  it."  He 
smiled  as  might  a  mediaeval  prince  with  his  armed 
retinue  about  him  while  he  tells  the  turbulent 
peasant  to  take  his  right. 

Catharine  flashed  back  as  merciless  as  himself. 
"I  would,"  she  said,  "Only  her  business  manager  has 
appropriated  the  savings  of  her  life  time.  I  can't 
study  medicine  on  sympathy."  Then  with  a  strange 
inconsistency,  her  anger  vanished  before  the  pain 
in  the  kindly  face  beneath  the  soft  white  hair. 

At  last  he  spoke  gravely.  "You  are  most  unkind," 
he  said.  "Did  I  ever  refuse  you  or  your  mother  any- 
thing because  of  the  money  it  cost?" 

Catharine  had  been  invited  by  Mrs.  Warner  to 
dine  with  some  English  guests  and  in  response  to  a 
hurried  whisper  had  gowned  herself  as  for  a  func- 
tion ;  and  on  her  return  came  into  her  father's  room 
still  in  her  evening  attire.  Her  homeliness  was  em- 
phasized by  her  simple  exquisite  gown.  In  the 
pause,  while  her  mind  worked,  her  hands  unfastened 
the  ornaments  at  her  neck  and  wrists,  carelessly 
laying  them  on  the  desk  before  her.  A  rebellious 
questioning  restrained  her  easily  aroused  contri- 
tion. Why  was  it  her  mother  and  father  saved  and 
worked  together  during  the  long  years,  one  not  more 
than  the  other,  and  in  the  end  all,  even  the  mother, 
took  each  dollar  as  from  her  father's  bounty,  and 
he  gave  it  as  only  his.  She  longed  to  cry  out  and 
accuse  him;  but  he  suffered,  and  her  voice  pleaded. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  116 

"Father,  you  give  me  only  what  you  wish  me  to 
have.  I  am  hungry  for  bread  and  you  load  me  with 
candies.  I  crave  work,  intelligent,  womanly  work 
and  you  give  me  these."  She  pushed  the  gold  and 
jewels  away  impatiently.  "I  thought  they  represent- 
ed love.  They  may.  I  can't  say  they  don't.  But  it  isn't 
a  love  that  nourishes.  It  isn't  a  love  I  have 
earned  or  can  hold  by  any  effort  of  my  own. 
I  want  the  means  to  command  love  or," — 
The  father  did  noi:  discern  the  gasp  of  fear  in  the 
pause  or  the  salient  plunge  that  engrossed  it.  — "or, 
as  a  man  does,  when  he  must,  achieve  and  do  without 
it.  What  are  gowns,  hats  and  laces  to  me?  You 
might  as  well  take  the  water  that  could  irrigate 
acres  of  alfalfa  to  make  a  flower  garden  in  a  rock 
on  the  hill  side  as  to  deck  me  always  for  social  ac- 
tivities. I  could  go  to  medical  college  on  half  the 
money  you  give  me  to  buy  these  things." 

"Very  well,  you  may  do  it,  Catharine  on  half  your 
present  allowance,"  Mr.  Paine  interrupted  in  the 
tone  with  which  he  had  often  caught  up  a  marvel- 
ously  fine  trade  out  of  the  confusion  of  extravagant 
presentation  which,  when  reduced  to  literalness,  em- 
bodied unintended  concessions.  It  was  not  a  cun- 
ning advantage  ever  but  the  quick  decision  of  his 
astute  matter  of  fact  mind  which,  with  an  uncons- 
cious irony  for  other  men's  digression  from  the  prac- 
tical, extracted  the  imaginative  excess,  so  often  an 
instrument  of  unplanned  deception,  and  turned  it 
against  the  object  of  its  conception. 

Catharine  stood  dazed. 


116  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"Well,  are  you  satisfied?"  The  imprecation  of  the 
tone  was  a  goad  that  was  to  be  ever  with  her. 
Other  women  might  fail,  yield,  go  home  in  their  diffi- 
culties but  she  was  bound  to  work  out  her  life. 

"Thank  you  father."  The  humility  of  the  voice 
might  have  been  a  pleading  for  a  loosening  of  the 
thongs.  But  Mr.  Paine  had  turned  resolutely  to 
his  paper. 

"Good-night,"  she  said.  The  tone  was  an  en- 
treaty. 

"Good-night,"  he  answered.  It  was  an  imperious 
dismissal. 

As  she  put  her  hand  on  the  knob  to  open  the 
door,  it  trembled.  But  in  the  hall  to  close  it  the 
grasp  was  firm.  "To  be  up  against  it"  but  to  be 
young  and  strong  is  an  exhilaration.  The  compul- 
sion she  could  not  escape  took  hold  of  her.  The  door 
closed  swift  and  noiseless  and  with  a  quick  sure 
step  she  went  up  the  stairs.  In  her  own  room,  she 
stood  in  the  dark.  There  was  no  tremor  but  she  was 
dizzy  with  many  emotions.  If  she  could  have  been 
altogether  like  him,  it  might  have  been  easier ;  but  to 
his  probing  shrewdness  was  added  her  mother's 
brooding  passion  to  be  loved  and  to  be  right,  and 
worthy  of  love.  Her  relation  with  her  father  had 
ever,  until  now,  been  the  same  and  this  vertiginous 
pause  was  portentous  in  that  forever  after  all  was 
to  be  different.  In  the  midst  of  unbridled  exertions 
on  the  part  of  her  parents  she  had  been  brought 
into  the  world.  With  their  backs  to  defeat,  they 
were  facing  the  unknown  wildness  when  she  was 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  117 

born.  Every  obstacle  to  the  attainment  of  each 
end  must  be  removed,  no  difficulty  must  affright  be- 
cause behind  was  failure,  and  when  failure  had 
scored  once,  once  more  and  he  may  possess  the  vic- 
tim as  a  habit.  That  alertly  strenuous  period  gave 
place  to  calmer,  more  complacent  years,  but  to 
Catharine  was  bequeathed  its  indominable  genius. 
From  childhood,  novel  desires  possessed  her  as  the 
demand  of  a  far-reaching  necessity.  With  her 
mother  she  had  reigned  and  had  her  way.  When  she 
was  older,  she  was  referred  to  her  father.  Each 
time  she  assailed  him  with  a  fine  bravado  beneath 
which  lurked  a  fear  she  would  not  own.  Each  time 
he  was  moved  with  light  disdain  to  dismiss 
her  need  by  a  wave  of  the  hand.  Then  ever 
urged  on  by  a  whim  or  by  precocious  foresight  she 
would  persist.  At  last  doused  coldly  on  the  red  heat 
of  her  insistence  would  come  the  consent,  depleting- 
ly  depriving  her  of  the  tonic  of  enthusiasm,  chal- 
lenging her  to  the  fulfillment  of  its  madest  protesta- 
tions. Each  time  with  a  strength  that  held  less  of 
recuperative  ardor  and  more  of  grim  resolve,  she 
had  met  the  challenge.  She  braced  her  body  against 
the  foot  board  of  her  bed. 

"I  will  not  be  bitter.  He  can't  make  me."  She 
was  not  speaking  but  the  flow  of  thought  came  as 
distinctly  as  the  spontaneous  expression  of  the 
moment-borne  orator.  "If  he  loves  me,  he  will  have 
to  find  another  way  of  demonstrating  it  than  by  lay- 
ing me  prostrate  and  throwing  me  what  I  wanted 
when  I  stood  erect.    I'll  never  go  to  him  in  need. 


118  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

I'll  never  let  him  help,  if  I  am  starving  body  and 
soul.  And  my  child,"  every  woman  says  it  without 
thought  of  man — "My  child  shall  go  to  the  work  that 
calls  her  with  all  the  zest  and  vitality  of  its  first 
conception  to  sustain  her.  She  shall  not  be  maimed 
for  every  undertaking,  not  for  a  single  one."  She 
reached  up  for  a  match  and  lit  the  gas.  Henry's 
patrician,  victorious  face  smiled  at  her  from  the 
desk.  She  knelt  down  and  looked  at  it  long  and  stead- 
ily as  she  so  often  did ;  loving,  understanding,  hault- 
ing  yearningly.  It  was  in  his  pictured  likeness  that 
she  began  to  see  her  fate.  The  answer  to  her  love 
did  not  penetrate  beneath  a  certain  strata  of  her 
soul.  But,  Oh !  he  was  so  brilliantly  fair.  Her  arms 
encircled  the  small  guilt  frame,  and  her  head  drop- 
ped to  the  desk.  She  sobbed  struggling  frantically 
not  to  arouse  the  house.  Hearing  her  mother's 
step,  she  sprang  up,  turned  off  the  light  and  held 
her  breath. 

"Why,  dear,  I  thought  I  saw  your  light,"  Mrs. 
Paine  remarked  in  the  doorway. 

"I  just  came  in,"  Catharine  answered. 

"Anything  the  matter?" 

"No,"  in  the  dark  the  girl  still  felt  the  sobs  in  her 
throat  and  waited  impatiently. 

"Goodnight,  dear,"  came  the  answer  solicitously 
interrogative. 

"Wait  a  moment,  mamma."  She  came  into  control 
of  her  vocal  organs,  scratched  a  match  decisively, 
and  held  it  to  the  gas.  Standing  under  it,  she  look- 
ed down  at  her  mother  who  came  up  to  her. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  119 

"It  is  decided,  mamma,  I  am  to  go,"  she  said. 
Mrs.  Paine  put  her  arms  around  her  clingingly. 

"I  am  so  glad,  Kitty,  I  knew  it  would  all  come 
right." 

Catharine  gazed  over  her  head  at  the  wall  oppo- 
site with  a  hard  difficult  smile.  She  too  might  have 
been  glad.  How  could  she  think  it  had  not  come 
right?    Wasn't  it  what  she  had  wanted? 

"Yes,"  she  answered  with  steeled  gentleness.  "You 
needn't  worry  any  more,  little  mother." 

Still  Mrs.  Paine  lingered.  The  girl  released  her- 
self. "Good-night.  Good-night,"  she  repeated.  She 
was  wild  to  be  alone. 

An  hour  later,  Catharine  lay  motionless  in  her  bed, 
hands  clasped  above  her  head  Two  questions  chas- 
ed each  other  in  and  out  of  her  troubled  thoughts, 
"Am  I  right?  Can  I  do  it  on  four  hundred  dollars 
a  year?  She  lay  so  tense  she  did  not  hear  the  door 
open  slowly  till  a  child's  voice  repeated  three  times, 
each  time  a  little  louder  than  before. 

"Kitty,  dearest,  are  you  asleep?"  Margie  often 
came  thus  persevering  in  her  question  till  she  obtain- 
ed the  satisfactory  answer. 

Catharine  stretched  out  her  arms,  "Margie,  and 
without  your  slippers  again?  Quick,  love,  don't 
stand  in  the  cold." 

The  little  barefoot,  white-gowned  figure  ran  for- 
ward and  with  much  laughter,  groped  her  way  under 
the  blankets. 

"I  couldn't  go  to  sleep."  the  child  apologized  with 
entire  belief  in  her  own  truthfulness,  as  she  put  her 


120  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

short  fat  arms  around  her  sister's  neck. 

"Kitty,"  this  youngest  Paine  volunteered  after  a 
moment,  "don't  give  up  about  the  medicme.  I 
know  you  are  right." 

Catharine  laid  her  head  against  the  little  one  on 
her  shoulder.    "Margie,  I  am  going",  she  said. 

"Oh,  Kitty,"  and  the  little  arms  tightened,  "there 
won't  be  anybody  to  let  me  do  what  I  want  to  when 
I  want  to  do  it,  but  I  am  glad  you  are  going  just 
the  same",  she  ended  with  childish  unction. 

"I  will  come  back  before  you  are  a  woman,  and 
what  you  do  at  all  you  shall  do  in  the  first  enthu- 
siasm of  wanting  it." 

"Yes,"  replied  the  irrelevant  Margie,  "and  I'll 
have  my  party  before  you  go?" 

Catharine  laughed  happily.  The  spell  of  her 
father's  imprecation  was  broken  "It  shall  be  to- 
morrow," Catharine  declared  and  both  fell  peace- 
fully asleep. 

When  the  door  had  closed  behind  his  daughter, 
Mr.  Paine  methodically  wiped  his  glasses  with  his 
handkerchief,  and  brushed  it  across  his  eyes.  He 
took  up  first  the  gold  band,  then  the  necklace  with 
its  sparkling  pendant.  There  was  a  large  diamond 
in  the  center  set  around  with  rubies.  He  held  them 
in  front  of  the  light  with  troubled  scrutiny.  Catha- 
rine seemed  pleased  when  he  brought  them  to  her 
a  year  before.  Then  he  dropped  each  in  a  little 
drawer  and  locked  it  thinking  much  after  the 
fashion  of  King  Lear  when  he  sent  Cordelia  away. 
He  had  hoped  much  from  Catharine  and  she  had 
failed  him. 


CHAPTER  IX 


CATHARINE  sat  on  Mrs.  Warner's  front  steps. 
She  had  rung  the  bell  and  leisurely  awaited 
an  admittance.  Frequently  in  a  morning 
rush,  Mrs.  Warner  did  not  answer  a  ring  at 
the  door;  but,  when  sufficient  interval  had  elasped, 
she  would  stealthily  appear  behind  the  lace  covered 
glass,  inspect  the  receding  figure  and  if  desirable 
call  her  back  with  apologies.  Those  who  were  per- 
mitted to  continue  their  ways  criticised  Mrs.  War- 
ner. Catharine  was  not  one  of  these  and  was  in- 
clined to  leniency.  She  found  it  convenient  to 
adapt  herself  to  the  excentricities  of  her  friends 
and  to  cherish  no  rancor  in  respect  to  habits  clearly 
subservient  to  necessary  domestic  arrangements. 
She  was  far  from  impatient  there,  with  her  back 
to  the  door,  her  face  to  the  hills.  She  could  almost 
think  such  a  morning  had  come  to  nourish  back  the 
vitality  of  her  hopes.  There  was  always  balm  for 
the  little  tragedy  of  heart  sickness  with  which  she 
set  forth  on  each  new  venture.  To-day  it  was  In- 
dian summer  and  there  was  a  forest  fire  far  up  in 
the  hills.  A  blue  haze  hung  from  the  sky  to  the 
earth.    The  stir  of  air  was  at  once  soft,  tender  with 


121 


122  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

warmth,  and  penetrating.  It  was  as  if  a  breeze 
from  some  distant  southern  sea,  had  fought  its  way 
to  this  northern  inland  spot,  and  lingered  here  be- 
fore it  died,  in  its  last  moments  full  of  the  gentle- 
ness brought  from  its  sunny  beach,  yet  full  too  in 
the  peacefulness  of  its  ending  with  the  thrill  for 
the  onward  move  that  had  grown  into  it  during  its 
long  journey  over  mountain  and  desert.  Catharine 
let  her  light  coat  down  from  her  shoulders  and 
dreamily  thought  that  through  years  of  such  days, 
Henry  might  have  been  reared  into  the  beauty  of  his 
harmonious  manhood.  There  was  no  langour  in  the 
air,  only  rest,  still  breathing  the  vigor  of  forgotten 
tempests.  All  the  rugged  lines  of  the  mountains 
were  softened.  She  leaned  back  against  the  newell 
post  with  closed  eyes.  "Henry,  Henry,"  and  in  the 
benevolent  fanning  of  her  cheeks,  it  seemed  he 
must  be  near,  yet  it  is  only  in  the  seeming  that  we 
answer  nature,  from  within  sprang  the  presage  of 
the  fury  of  the  blast.  In  a  fierce  sweep  of  rebellion, 
she  knew  that  he  would  never  come  back  to  her  with 
his  gift  of  peace.  She  was  staring  blankly  before 
her,  when  Fred  Tyler  crossed  the  street,  and  slip- 
ping her  shoulders  into  her  coat,  she  went  down  to 
the  gate  to  hail  him.    He  saw  her  and  stopped. 

"I  am  going,  Fred,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  I  knew  you  would." 

Oh,  Fred,  you  say  just  enough  and  say  it  in  the 
right  way.  I  am  frantic  over  ought  and  oughtn't.  I 
must  go  as  you  must  go  to  the  court  house  to-day, 
sooner  or  later." 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  123 

"Yes,  you  must,"  he  answered. 

Her  face  thanked  him  for  all  he  did  not  say.  "It 
has  done  me  a  world  of  good  to  tell  you."  He  went 
on  his  way  and  Catharine  turned  back. 

"Kitty  Paine,"  Mrs.  Warner  welcomed  her  from 
the  very  edge  of  the  piazza,  "last  night  you  were 
entrancing." 

Catharine  pulled  her  down  on  the  steps.  "Not  so 
bad  as  that,"  she  answered.  "It  is  too  beautiful  to 
go  in.  How  can  a  forest  fire  burn  so  long  and  there 
be  anything  left."  She  fixed  her  hand  securely  in 
the  strap  of  Mrs.  Warner's  long  sleeved,  brown 
gingham  apron.  "I  won't  keep  you  long  but  you 
shall  stay  a  moment." 

"Everything  is  put  away  and  a  lunch  of  leavings 
set  aside,"    Mrs.  Warner  assured  her. 

"I  am  going,"  Catharine  announced. 

"Kitty  Paine,"  Mrs.  Warner  wailed,  "I  knew  you 
would  and  you  never  will  marry." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  shall.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  marry- 
ing," Catharine's  mood  had  become  logical. 

"Your  father  has  no  business  to  let  you.  It's  a 
miserable  shame." 

Catharine  put  her  arm  around  her  shoulder. 
"You'll  see,"  she  laughed.  "There's  Mildred  left  to 
tell  and  I  must  go  home  and  burn  letters  and  pack.  I 
leave  to-morrow  night  and  make  a  party  for  Margie 
this  afternoon. 

"Teased  your  father  into  it,  and  won't  give  him 
time  to  reconsider." 

"He  won't  reconsider  because  he  never  considered. 


124     EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

He  just  decided." 

"There's  the  grocery  man."  Mrs.  Warner  sur- 
reptitiously unbottoned  the  back  strap  of  her  apron 
on  both  sides,  and  escaped.  "I'll  phone  for  Mildred 
while  I'm  in.  She's  huffy  because  I  didn't  have  her 
last  night,  and  I  want  to  bring  you  both  some  ice." 

Mildred  came  across  the  street  in  her  dressing 
sack.  It  was  Saturday  and  she  had  been  washing 
out  handkerchiefs.  "You  are  the  luckiest  was  her 
comment  upon  receiving  the  information,  "But  you 
aren't  the  only  one  this  time." 

"I'm  glad.    Aren't  you  going  to  tell  me?" 

"Of  course,  I'm  to  be  John's  typewriter,  private 
secretary,  general  utility  woman  about  the  office. 
I  don't  think  Mrs.  Allen  likes  it  but  I  don't  care. 
She's  kept  John  in  leading  strings  about  long 
enough.  I  made  him  give  his  word  before  she  got 
wind  of  it,  or  by  some  mischance  it  would  have  fallen 
through." 

"Mildred,"  Catharine  observed  her  unpreturbed 
face  seriously,  "if  you  didn't  talk  so  much  I'd  think 
you  had  designs." 

"I've  designs  to  get  out  of  teaching,"  Mildred 
answered. 

"It  seems  to  me,  I'd  rather  teach,"  Catharine  de- 
murred. 

"It's  very  well  to  say  that  when  you  haven't  ever 
taught,"  Mildred  retorted. 

"I  am  hardly  in  a  position  to  express  a  prefer- 
ence," Catharine  fairly  admitted  to  herself  as  well 
as  to  Mildred. 


BOOK  THREE 


CHAPTER  I 


MRS.  ALLEN  steadily  poured  another  cup  of 
coffee. 
There  had  been  the  faintest  assertive- 
ness  in  John's  manner  of  telling  her.  It  was 
puzzling  together  with  the  heightening  background 
of  silence  that  preceded  it.  Till  now  she  had  read  him 
as  an  open  book  and  he  had  never  felt  her  turn  the 
leaves,  indeed,  had  turned  them  for  her.  A  script 
of  contusing  cipher  would  have  pleased  her,  as  a 
token  of  more  mature  development;  instead  there 
was  only  a  furtive  covering  of  the  pages. 

"How  did  it  happen  you  didn't  mention  it  be- 
fore?" She  also  was  ostensibly  an  open  book,  and 
if  there  was  an  indelible  writing  between  the  lines, 
he  had  not  suspected  it  nor,  by  chance,  happened 
upon  any  psychic  chemical  to  bring  it  to  his  mental 
vision. 

"Why  should  I  mention  it?"  His  eyes  challenged 
although  her  attitude  held  no  hint  of  acquisation. 

"Interesting  conversation,  good  matter  for  table 
talk."  She  lightly  ignored  his  tone,  which  chafed  at 
some  intangible  bondage. 

"Must  a  man  discuss  all  his  business  with  his 


127 


128  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

wife?"    He  became  awkwardly  jocose. 

"Not  his  business  but  that  of  his  next  door  neigh- 
bor. From  the  standpoint  of  Mildred,  it  was  news 
that  with  variations  would  have  given  matter  for 
conjecture  through  two  meals."  She  thus  dismissed 
the  verbal  obstructions  to  communication  by  which 
they  had  been  confusing  each  other  with  an  ease  that 
relieved  and  harrassed  him. 

"Try  to  catch  a  load  of  wood  on  the  street,  John," 
she  requested  as  he  pushed  back  his  chair  from  the 
breakfast  table. 

When  she  returned  from  an  errand  to  the  kit- 
chen, he  was  in  the  hallway,  righting  his  coat  on 
his  shoulders  and  his  hat  in  his  hand. 

"Good-bye,"  she  said  moving  a  step  into  the  hall 
from  the  dining  room." 

"Good-bye,"  he  answered  hurriedly  sweeping  out 
the  front  door. 

She  stood  with  her  hands  holding  the  draperies  of 
the  arch  between  the  two  rooms.  It  was  not  that 
Mildred  was  to  be  his  office  companion.  It  was  the 
unwonted  taciturnity  that  surrounded  the  arrange- 
ment, and  to  cap  it  the  omitted  kiss  that  held  her  in 
perplexity.  Business  reticence  between  them  was 
ridiculous.  He  had  worked  out  every  undertaking 
orally  under  the  inspiration  of  her  presence.  She 
had  anticipated  each  success  and  been  the  first  with 
congratulations.  With  guarded  depreciations  she 
had  inhibited  too  extravagant  projects  or  with  quick 
pertinent  modification  had  brought  the  sanely  plan- 
ned to  logical  acumination.    All  happy  results  she 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  129 

applauded  as  due  entirely  to  his  judgment.  Now 
like  an  anxious  parent,  self  exacting,  clear  of  vision 
"It  was  not  his  fault  if  he  had  intended  to  deceive," 
she  told  herself.  "It  was  not  his  nature."  At  noon 
the  kiss  which  had  been  omitted  was  bestowed  with 
reassuring  gusto,  and  there  were  truculent  criticisms 
of  Mildred's  inefficiency.  These  Mrs.  Allen  molli- 
fyingly  reconstructed  for  a  future  mood. 

After  that,  three  years  passed  by  in  the  lives  of 
John  and  Mrs.  Allen  uneventfully  calm. 

Three  years  is  a  short  time  in  a  town  which  is 
dead  especially  to  those  whose  life  has  become  rou- 
tine. It  was  in  the  three  years  after  Catharine's 
departure  and  Mildred's  change  of  vocation  that  the 
collapse  of  the  boom  which  had  in  reality  begun  be- 
fore Catharine's  return  from  Vassar,  gradually 
forced  a  recognition  upon  the  little  settlement  left  in 
the  wake  of  the  passing  Westward  sweep  of  popula- 
tion as  the  debris  of  a  glacier  is  left  to  mark  the 
course  from  which  it  has  receded.  There  was  no- 
thing to  hold  an  undue  number  of  people  in  Rapid  so 
when  the  influx,  which  during  the  rush  had  been 
balanced  by  the  efflux  ceased,  there  was  remaining 
a  very  small  residuum.  Except  for  fires  and  deaths 
Rapid  became  stationary.  Advantages,  however, 
accrued  from  this  curtailment  of  growth.  From 
hurrying  so  sanguinely  on  the  town  began  to  look 
back.  It  developed  traditions,  grounded  in  a  newly 
realized  past.  As  John  Allen  and  Mr.  Paine  stood 
out  more  and  more  staunchly  retarding  the  retreat 
of  prosperity,  their  prominence  was  augmented  by 


130  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

association  with  this  plenteous  past  which  was  a? 
much  further  away  in  men's  minds  than  the  few  in- 
tervening years,  as  the  debauch  of  the  night  is  more 
distant  from  the  heaviness  of  morning  than  the 
hours  between. 

What  John  and  Mr.  Paine  were  to  the  town  finan- 
cially, Mrs.  Paine  and  Mrs.  Allen  were  to  it  socially. 
The  two  women  transformed  in  themselves  the  ef- 
fusive gusto  which  was  the  concomitant  of  the 
boom's  credulity,  into  a  dignity  of  moderate  hope- 
fulness. They  were  at  once  the  conservative  res- 
traint and  the  definite  impetus  in  every  enterprise. 
Mrs.  Allen  was  the  stronger,  positive  figure.  But, 
however,  she  piloted  Rapid's  public  opinion,  Mrs. 
Paine's  instinct  was  the  cloud  veiled  polar  star  she 
was  ever  striving  to  discern  as  the  director  of  her 
course.  Mrs.  Paine  approvingly  noted  the  right 
and  pleasant  ways  they  went  and  never  suspected 
that  she  had  beckoned  to  the  watchful  one  at  the 
wheel. 

Mildred  also  occupied  a  place  whose  permanency 
was  well  founded  in  the  past.  By  virtue  of  being  a 
part  of  Rapid  almost  from  the  beginning,  her  do- 
ings were  followed  with  kindly,  over  solicitous 
closeness.  Her  democratic  geniality,  assuaged  all 
criticism  of  her  indiscretions.  As  a  teacher  she 
had  sailed  under  flaunting  flags  of  youth  mandatory 
of  indulgence.  But  at  the  period  of  business  associa- 
tion with  John  Allen,  she  began  to  draw  them  in. 
Rapid  had  looked  askance  at  the  arrangement,  only 
to  be  surprised  into  unequivocal  commendation  of 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  131 

Mildred.  Her  smile  and  laughter  was  no  less  indis- 
criminately cordial,  but  her  ways  became  circum- 
spect. She  did  not  lunch  with  John  at  the  Harney 
on  busy  days,  she  did  not  walk  with  him  to  and 
from  the  office,  there  were  a  thousand  conspicuous, 
innocent  things  she  did  not  do  that  she  might  have 
done.  Three  years  went  smoothly  by  and  sceptical 
prognostications  dispersed  into  attenuated  protest 
against  the  unfaltered  opportunities. 

Mrs.  Allen  from  the  first  experienced  a  strangely 
trammeled,  sinuous  course  of  meditation.  As  the 
town,  she  recognized  that  the  relation  of  John  and 
Mildred  was  exemplarily  that  of  the  employer  and 
the  employee  of  equally  balanced  intelligence  and  of 
different  sexes.  Yet  more  and  more  often  till  they 
became  well  nigh  chronic  John  presented  torment- 
ingly  insolvable  moods,  which  instinctively  she  as- 
sociated with  Mildred.  When  she  attacked  the 
problem,  her  mind  worked  in  a  circle  of  revolving 
questioning  and  she  discovered  no  cue  to  ferret  out 
the  source  of  the  inexplicable  in  John,  and  the  fear 
in  herself.  The  fear  was  of  phantom  indistinctness 
and  defied  analysis. 

It  was  during  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  year 
of  the  present  chapter  that  her  bewilderment  was 
dispelled  for  a  few  weeks,  only  to  gather  befogging 
density.  There  was  enacted  a  little  comedy,  John 
became  occupied  with  one  of  his  innocuous  love 
affairs.  That  is  it  was  innocuous  so  far  as  it  in- 
volved John  and  Mrs.  Allen.  An  inconceivably 
large  number  of  women  had  been,  in  turn,  the  re- 


182  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

ceptacle  for  his  short  lived  amatory  ebullition,  each 
to  be  deserted  to  a  serred  sense  of  bereavement.  He 
was  one  of  the  lovable  people  who  have  a  genius 
for  transient,  abandonment  to  a  devotion  which 
passes  to  leave  the  victim  trapped  in  the  misery  of 
the  permanent  response  it  has  elicited.  Mrs.  Allen 
had  given  little  thought  to  the  women  he  had  hurt. 
They  had  on  the  whole  been  inferior  creatures  not 
worthy  to  be  more  than  contributors  to  John's 
temporary  diversion.  In  the  most  highly  moral 
sense  he  was  unquestionably  honorable, — peculiarly 
unimpeachable.  The  time  came  when  Mrs.  Allen 
admitted  a  certain  poetic  justice  in  that  the  fruit 
of  the  seeds  of  pain  he  sowed  was  loyalty  to  him  and 
rancor  for  her.  She  was  actually  to  each  suc- 
cessive sufferer  the  obstacle  to  the  happy  consuma- 
tion.  In  several  instances  her  subtle  supervision  of 
his  affections  was  as  evident  to  the  woman  as  it  was 
hidden  from  John.  She  welcomed  and  over-worked 
this  last  of  his  oddly  open,  non-resultant  infatua- 
tions. She  took  refuge  in  it.  John's  step  lost  some 
of  its  restless  hurry,  the  old  directness  returned  to 
his  glance.  She  praised  the  girl's  dimpled  hands 
and  dimpled  cheeks.  She  let  him  find  them  sewing 
together  when  he  came  to  dinner,  made  her  the 
fourth  hand  at  cards  and  sent  him  for  her.  It  was 
not  wily  premeditation.  Every  man's  method  in 
smoothing  his  own  way  of  daily  existence  becomes 
fixed.  Mrs.  Allen  merely  drifted  into  excess. 
Then,  as  if  an  enemy  had  stolen  the  weapon  she  had 
discarded,  John  would  have  no  more  to  do  with  the 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  133 

girl  she  still  petted.  Her  dimples  were  inane.  Her 
simpering  voice  bored  him.  He  didn't  like  to  oe 
run  after.  He  bowed  to  her  from  the  hall  with 
the  air  of  business  preoccupation.  He  was  feelmg 
very  mature  just  then.  The  girl  was  only  eighteen. 
In  the  events  that  followed  she  was  one  of  the  few, 
who  took  Mrs.  Allen's  part. 


CHAPTER  II 


CC     ¥  ^^^  ALLEN",  Mildred  slipped  her  hand 

I       away.     There  was  no  high  indignation. 

^-^       She  tentatively  awaited  his  next  move. 

"Why  not?"  he  laughed. 

"Mrs.  Allen  will  scent  it  and  FU  lose  my  job", 
her  voice  slightly  derided  him. 

"Do  you  think  Mrs.  Allen  controls  me?"  The 
blood  mounted  to  his  cheecks. 

"Well  she  is  your  wife.  We  aren't  any  of  us  con- 
verts to  Mormanism  as  yet."  She  leaned  back 
against  the  window  casement;  and,  standing  in  her 
white  shirt  waist,  and  dark  skirt,  her  figure  large 
and  full,  her  poise  straight  and  vigorous,  she  was 
what  is  nominated  a  fine  looking  woman.  She 
stretched  her  arm  along  the  bar  of  the  window 
frame  and  surveyed  him  with  enticing  indifference. 
Fascinatingly  she  held  him  off.  Rolling  down  the 
top  of  his  desk,  he  let  it  fall  with  a  click  and  a 
thud.  She  remained  pleasantly  unsmiling  till  he 
had  got  his  hat  and  coat,  then  while  he  delayed  with 
nothing  to  do  but  clink  the  change  in  his  trouser 
pockets  and  watch  her,  she  took  her  own  hat  from  a 
hook  behind  the  door  and  reached  up  her  arms  to 


124 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  135 

fasten  the  pins  in  place.  She  was  very  deliberate. 
As  a  final  concession  on  her  part  they  went  out  into 
the  street  together. 

That  evening  at  dinner  his  restlessness  pervaded 
the  room  as  distractingly  as  the  scurrying  antics  of 
a  cat  eluding  capture.  He  was  always  a  careless 
server  and  to-night  slashed  down  into  the  veal  roast 
and  hacked  around  the  protruding  bone. 

"John,  I  can't  endure  it  one  night  longer.  There 
is  no  getting  a  smooth  slice  of  cold  meat  for  lunch. 
I  am  going  to  teach  you  to  carve  with  propriety.." 

Accordingly,  Mrs.  Allen  got  up  and  started  around 
the  table ;  but  he  shoved  the  platter  across  to  her  in 
lowering  silence,  drew  the  plate  he  had  served  near- 
er to  him  and  began  to  eat.  She  had  expected  a 
bantering  remonstrance  and  a  jocular  fretted  ridi- 
cule of  her  way  of  doing  it.  Still  the  act  was  in 
conformity  with  the  mood  that  was  becoming  so 
distressingly  familiar.  Bursts  of  petulance  quite 
out  of  proportion  to  the  source  of  irritation  were  of 
frequent  occurance ;  and,  though  ever  weighed  down 
by  a  sense  of  vicarious  accountability,  she  had  with- 
out fail  maintained  an  attitude  of  unruffled  cheerful- 
ness. The  nervous  expenditure  that  might  easily 
have  been  flung  into  exacerbation,  she  controlled  to 
be  used  in  devising  relief  rather  than  aliment  for 
his  asperity.  But  each  repetition  of  the  effort  of 
restraint  left  her  less  equipped  for  the  next. 

Pushing  back  the  platter  and  straightening  the 
gravy  bowl  which  had  been  dislocated  at  its  side, 
she  said  with  gentleness,  "We  need  not  be  rude  about 


136  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

it.  It  does  not  matter  to  that  extent,"  and  went 
back  to  her  place. 

"So  I  am  also  to  be  instructed  in  manners!"  he 
fumed,  and  continued  to  eat  unheeding  the  empty 
plate  before  him  and  the  unspoken  apology  of  her 
patient  serenity. 

"What  is  the  matter,  John?  You  must  admit." 
She  threw  off  the  pretense  of  easy  dismissal  of  the 
latent  discord  and  with  subdued  pain  begged  for  elu- 
cidation of  the  trouble. 

"Oh,  Lord,  yes",  he  broke  in.  I  admit  anything 
but  I  am  weary  of  being  pecked  at." 

Since  John  was  obdurate,  and  she  knew  the  falacy 
of  attempting  to  put  out  a  fire  by  contributing  fuel 
or  to  lower  the  tone  of  a  mandoline  by  tightening 
the  cords  that  are  struck,  she  went  over  and  served 
a  plate  for  herself  very  daintily.  When  she  took 
her  seat  John,  with  a  feeling  of  being  wronged,  no- 
ticed how  old  she  looked.  Only  by  a  distortion  she 
kept  her  face  calm.  The  lips  were  set  in  drawn 
lines,  that  deepened  into  the  last  preceeding  hurt 
she  had  pressed  behind  them.  There  was  a  sudden 
convulsive  twitch.  John  lowered  his  eyes  in  the 
impatient  indignation  of  the  man  who  never  strikes 
a  blow  yet  encounters  the  shrinking  fear  of  a  child. 

"Am  I  so  fault  finding?"  she  asked  pleading  for 
the  enlightenment  of  an  accusation. 

"Heavens,  drop  it!"  he  retorted  pushing  back  his 
plate.  He  was  ready  for  the  next  course  and  she 
touched  the  bell. 

While  she  was  transfering  the  chocolate  custard 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  137 

from  the  cut  glass  bowl  into  the  small  white  dishes 
a  few  of  the  much  used  expedients  for  amusing  John 
passed  through  her  mind.  She  might  telephone  up  a 
chafing  dish,  or  a  card,  or  a  bowling  party,  but  she 
was  abashed  and  balked  at  the  new  note  in  his  un- 
rest, a  weariness  of  her  presence.  For  that  there 
had  been  innumerable  preventatives  but  she  had 
no  remedy.  She  was  driven  to  the  wall  and  from 
the  hard  pressing  closeness  of  it,  looked  at  him  with 
probing  appeal.  He  evaded  in  the  preoccupation  of 
consuming  the  custard.  After  all  the  contact  of 
sound  masonry  is  not  a  bad  support  for  developing 
rigidity  of  position.  Against  his  obstancy,  she  set 
herself  the  hard  part  to  wait  and  see.  She  chained 
herself  against  the  wall. 

When  they  left  the  dinner  table,  she  turned  on 
the  electric  light  in  the  middle  of  the  library  table 
that  was  in  the  back  parlor;  placed  two  chairs  so 
that  a  person  sitting  in  either  was  equally  access- 
ible to  its  rays;  then  settled  herself  with  a  recent 
novel.  John,  his  hands  thrust  deep  into  his  pockets, 
walked  aimlessly  back  and  forth  through  the  rooms 
with  long  strides.  Mrs.  Allen  read  to  the  bottom 
of  the  page  and  was  about  to  turn  the  leaf,  when 
with  a  grimly  pathetic  amusement,  it  occured  to 
her  that  it  would  be  equally  profitable  to  begin 
again  at  the  top  of  the  one  she  had  just  completed. 
After  a  while  he  came  and  sat  down  in  the  chair 
that  invited  him.  One  hand  still  in  his  pocket  the 
other  reached  for  the  Omaha  Bee.  She  made  some 
comments  on  the  political  situation,  and  he  answer- 


138  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

ed  in  monosyllables  without  looking  up  from  the 
paper.  Her  book  lay  open  for  a  few  moments  in 
her  lap.  Having  once  more  reached  the  bottom  of 
the  page,  she  methodically  marked  her  place,  and 
producing  a  thin  waist  from  her  work  basket  began 
to  make  button  holes.  She  had  no  sooner  readjust- 
ed herself  than  John  threw  the  Bee  on  the  table 
and  stretched  out  his  legs.  She  glanced  at  him  then 
quickly  back  at  her  work.  All  the  boyish  innocence 
had  gone  out  of  his  eyes.  They  observed  her  as  if 
he  had  done  some  ignoble  thing  and  facing  her  did 
not  care.  But  he  had  not.  In  all  that  the  world's 
moral  code  calls  sin,  he  was  as  guiltless  as  when 
she  married  him.  She  bent  miserable  over  her 
work.  He  got  up  and  went  to  her  desk  rummaging 
in  the  pigeon  holes  till  he  found  note  paper  and  en- 
velopes to  fit.  Evenly  her  stitches  followed  each 
other,  and  the  line  of  overcasting  crept  out  along 
the  narrow  slit.  But  she  was  conscious  of  each  halt 
of  his  pen  and  the  mental  or  volitional  hesitation  it 
punctuated.  When  in  hurried  eagerness,  the  lines 
of  ink  were  left  behind  the  scratching  of  steel,  the 
beating  of  her  heart  was  stilled  as  if  he  wrote  with 
the  blood  of  it.  He  was  conscious  of  her  conscious- 
ness of  him.  She  was  across  the  room  and  his  body 
was  between  her  and  his  writing.  Yet  when  he 
blotted,  he  held  the  blue  pad  down  with  a  relief  as 
if  she  sat  within  that  questionable  range  where  one 
might  see  but  could  not  be  suspected  of  doing  so. 
Hastily  directing  the  envelope,  he  put  it  in  his 
pocket  and  arose.    She  bent  over  and  threw  up  a 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  139 

window.     "I  am  stifling,"  she  gasped.     He  looked 
at  her  strangely,  coldly. 

It  had  been  one  of  her  regrets  that  even  at  the 
times  of  most  harmonious  felicity,  an  evening  alone 
palled  upon  them.  She  had  never  fagged  before  the 
the  uninterrupted  doing  but  often  yearned  for  the 
conscious  communication  that  comes  only  in  the 
pause.  They  had  not  shrank  from  it  until  now.  They 
would  have  welcomed  it.  Had  her  zest  for  his  daily 
hourly  contentment  been  less  efficient,  out  of  some 
necessity  to  fill  the  passing  moments,  a  deeper 
hunger  might  have  been  borne  and  satisfied.  They 
might  have  developed  some  finer  medium  of  inter- 
course than  the  primitive  ones  to  which  they  were 
confined.  They  had  never  found  each  other  in  a 
common  uplift  at  a  peal  of  music,  a  swift  glance  of 
comprehension  at  the  motive  of  the  artist,  poet  or 
painter  or  hardly  in  appreciation  at  a  delicate  turn 
of  phrasing  that  brings  its  nascent  meaning  into 
words  as  old  as  the  race.  If  her  love  had  soared  to 
the  exaltation  of  the  maternal  passion,  his  had  been 
the  childish  content  of  being  satisfied  in  petty,  daily 
demands.  She  saw  it  now  that  it  was  too  late.  It 
was  only  nine  o'clock.  They  might  even  yet  pay  a 
call.  "No,  no,"  she  accused  the  habit,  "I  have 
always  saved  us  from  ourselves.  We  must  know 
what  is  there."  Resolutely  she  returned  to  her 
work,  and  the  fine  close  stitches  followed  each  other 
with  unerring  regularity.  He  picked  up  one  of  the 
new  magazines  and  by  turning  the  pages  read  the 
headings  of  the  stories  and  articles  even  continued 


140  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

the  cursory  perusal  half  way  through  the  advertis- 
ing supplement,  then  abruptly  tossed  it  on  top  of  the 
Bee,  making  a  disorder  on  the  table.  Impelled  by 
no  decision,  but  driven  aimlessly  by  a  little  higher 
surge  of  unrest,  he  sprang  up  and  left  the  house. 


CHAPTER  III 


HE  went  to  the  office  and  fumbled  about.  He 
was  not  wrestling  with  his  perplexity  but 
was  tossed  by  it.  He  was  not  endeavoring 
to  solve  a  problem  by  any  principle  of  mo- 
rality. He  had  not  formulated  any  proposition; 
was  merely  looking  for  an  advantageous  way  out, — 
of  what  he  hardly  knew.  It  was  the  business 
method.  When  the  worth  of  his  valley  property 
became  dependent  upon  the  priority  of  irrigation 
rights,  it  was  not  to  delve  for  an  underlying  legal 
or  economic  equity  that  he  set  the  lawyers  to  work 
but  to  lay  hold  of  some  short  sighted  act  of  legis- 
lation which  might  be  interpreted  so  as  to  establish 
claims  by  which  he  would  be  able  to  gain  the  neces- 
sary advantage  over  Mr.  Faine;  not  that  he  cherish- 
ed any  emulative  animosity  toward  Mr.  Paine  but 
that  by  the  coincidence  of  common  forethought,  it 
happened  to  be  his  profit  that  conflicted  with  his 
own.  Mr.  Paine  maintained  that  there  was  enough 
water  for  everyone  and  that  future  legislation 
should  be  in  the  direction  of  more  careful  destri- 
bution  and  less  lavishly  wasteful  use,  rather  than 
further  complication  of  already  contradictory  res- 


141 


142  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

trictions.  John  candidly  endorsed  this  view,  as  far 
as  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  difficulties  went  but 
for  his  own  part,  intended  to  provide  for  the  pos- 
sible contingency  of  scarcity  in  the  meantime.  With 
a  slight  effort  at  wire  pulling  during  the  present 
legislative  session,  he  was  confident  that  this  could 
be  accomplished.  Therefore  a  day  or  so  previous  he 
had  told  Mrs.  Allen  that  he  was  to  be  called  to 
Pierre  on  business.  She  had  responded  to  his  vague- 
ly indefinite  statement  that  she  hoped  the  irrigation 
matter  could  be  arranged  without  detriment  to  their 
own  or  Mr.  Paine's  interest,  and  he  had  responded 
that  he  guessed  Mose  Paine  could  look  out  for  him- 
self but  that  he,  John,  was  not  suing  for  a  compro- 
mise. He  was  pleased  at  the  prospect  of  being  pit- 
ted against  such  a  worthy  competitor. 

Mildred  had  no  knowledge  of  his  contemplated 
departure.  The  following  day  she  watched  him  non- 
chalantly to  all  appearances.  It  was  not  her  inten- 
tion to  be  used  for  his  amusement  and  cast  aside. 
She  had  always  liked  John  but  had  observed  him  so 
long  with  unbiased  closeness  before  the  slightest 
thought  of  actual  eligibility  had  entered  into  her 
considerations  that  her  vision  was  never  obstructed 
by  any  obfuscating  devotion.  Mildred  also  ordered 
her  ways  on  business  methods.  The  objective  point 
opened  to  her  only  along  the  line  of  petty  impedi- 
ments cleared  away  by  petty  ruthless  maneuvers. 
The  early  part  of  the  afternoon,  she  passed  swiftly 
from  one  task  to  another.  Her  gift  for  turning  off 
work  was  unusual,  later  in  the  lull  when  no  one 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  143 

came,  her  fingers  tapped  the  type-writer  in  dislu- 
tory  fashion.  She  was  ready  for  the  sequel  to  the 
episode  of  the  day  before.  But  John  was  exactly 
where  her  mild  repulse  had  left  him.  It  was  the 
point  beyond  which  he  had  never  gone  very  far.  He 
had  no  far  reaching  desire.  It  was  an  immediate 
one,  but  more  poignant  than  any  of  like  nature  he 
had  ever  experienced.  The  positive  prohibition  she 
imposed  upon  him  worked  the  accumulative  effect  of 
a  fine  restraint.  All  day  it  had  kept  in  his  pocket 
the  letter  he  addressed  to  her,  and  augmented  the 
emotion  that  produced  it.  When  he  went  for  his 
hat,  she  rolled  out  one  sheet  of  paper  and  rolled  in 
another;  and,  while  he  loitered  restively,  hunting  a 
misplaced  glove,  unlocking  his  desk  and  searching 
for  an  unnecessary  pencil,  standing  with  his  hat  in 
hand  delaying  for  no  reason  whatever,  she  smiled 
up  at  him  and  complacently  back  at  her  machine. 
The  yielding  intimacy  of  the  smile  satisfied  and  the 
comfortable  return  to  her  work  piqued.  He  wheel- 
ed and  left  her.  She  turned  out  the  unfinished  let- 
ter, tore  it  twice  across  and  sat  with  pursed  lips. 
"Very  well,  John  Allen,"  she  soloquized. 

That  night  she  played  whist  with  Dr.  Gillette  and 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Warner;  and  by  chance  Mrs.  Warner 
communicated  the  fact  to  John  over  the  telephone. 
The  unaccountable  aversion  of  the  Paines  and  Aliens 
had  not  shut  Dr.  Gillette  out  of  such  convivialities 
as  he  deigned  to  adorn  with  his  swagger.  Recently 
it  was  explained  by  the  adherents  of  the  reverend 
Warner's  policy  of  meeting  the  sinner  half  way, 


144  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

and  in  the  end  affecting  a  compromise  between  pas- 
toral sanctity  and  satanic  ardor,  that  Dr.  Gillette 
was  under  the  special  ministration  of  the  Warner's 
social  patronage  as  the  opening  of  an  avenue  of  ap- 
proach for  the  eventual  betterment  of  his  soul's 
welfare.  He  was  very  much  at  home  with  the  War- 
ners as  was  Mildred.  On  this  occasion  by  the  ar- 
rangement for  two  exclusively  pleasure  seeking  af- 
ternoons together,  following  fast  on  each  other  at 
the  earliest  possible  dates,  there  was  organized  one 
of  those  temporary  groups  which  in  a  small  commu- 
nity invariably  attract  observation  and  comment. 
The  next  day  was  Sunday  and  after  church,  they 
went  off  with  lunch  baskets.  Monday  on  Mildred's 
return  from  the  noon  meal,  John  noted  that  she  wore 
her  plumed  hat  and  otter  collar.  It  was  a  sun 
warmed  winter's  day  as  the  one  before  had  been, 
and  she  stated  without  an  intimation  of  the  em- 
ployee's deference  that  she  would  leave  the  office  at 
three  and  told  him  in  order  that  he  might  take  the 
proper  precautions  in  case  he  went  out.  "A  woman's 
club?"  he  asked  depreciatorily.  She  shook  Iher 
head.  When  the  hour  arrived  and  she  went  down 
the  stairs,  he  looked  from  the  window  in  time  to  see 
Dr.  Gillette  assist  her  into  the  front  of  a  double 
carriage  and  to  see  Mrs.  Warner  wave  to  him  from 
the  back  seat.  An  unreasoning  fury  possessed  him. 
Conceit  and  jealousy  can  at  any  time  consider  them- 
selves deceived.  He  was  cognizant  of  all  the  tacit 
concessions  with  which  she  had  led  him  on  but  the 
flattering  significance  of  this  deliberate  display  of 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  145 

other  sources  of  enjoyment,  eluded  him.  Before  he 
locked  up,  he  took  the  letter,  now  two  days  old,  from 
his  pocket  and  tore  it  into  shreds.  After  all  it  was 
a  noncommittal  epistle. 

At  dinner  Mrs.  Allen's  wrinkles  touched  him  with 
contrition.  When  they  went  into  the  library,  he 
pulled  her  down  on  the  arm  of  the  great  leather 
covered  chair.  He  occupied  its  body.  "Dear  old 
girl,"  he  said  and  laid  his  face  against  her  sleeve. 
She  put  her  arm  around  his  neck.  The  dry  sob  was  in 
her  throat,  an  ocean  of  tears  that  would  never  be 
shed  behind  the  blank  stare  of  her  wide  open  eyes. 
They  sat  thus  and  he  took  her  hand  and  put  it 
against  his  face.  All  the  years  of  her  unswerving 
devotion  were  borne  in  upon  him  and  also  the  mean- 
ing if  it  had  not  been  waiting  for  him  that  night. 
He  did  not  word  the  humility  of  his  gratitude  into 
admission  but  to  fill  the  moment  with  preciousness 
for  her,  it  was  there. 

"Boy,  my  boy,"  she  whispered  and  he  laughed 
contentedly. 

"John,  I  have  thought  I  would  go  East  with  Mrs. 
Paine  for  a  few  months." 

"Are  you  tired?  Do  you  want  to  go?"  The  face 
against  her  shoulder  lay  still,  questioningly. 

"I  think  it  is  best,"  she  answered. 

"Why  not  go  with  me  to  Pierre?"  he  suggested. 

She  stroked  his  large  hand  with  her  own.  Yes, 
he  wished  it.  Some  joyous  change  had  been 
wrought.  But  she  could  not  accept  the  future  on 
the  face  value  of  the  present.     "No,  it  would  be 


146  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

good,"  she  reasoned,  "for  him  to  be  in  Pierre  alone, 
to  be  unimcumbered  by  her  presence."  Without 
its  reminder,  he  was  a  care  free,  precocious  boy  to 
all  who  met  him. 

Mrs.  Allen  treasured  the  first  letter  that  came 
from  Pierre,  just  an  open  boyish,  boastful  letter. 
The  next  message  was  on  a  postal  card,  a  brief 
catagorical  statement  of  address,  health,  and  cli- 
matic conditions. 

In  the  meantime  he  had  received  business  in- 
formation from  Mildred  and  a  post  script  added, 
"Do  settle  Mr.  Paine  before  the  full  moon  comes 
again  and  return  to  your  duties  in  Rapid.  It  is  dull 
play  pretending  to  enjoy  the  world  with  Doc." 


CHAPTER  IV 


ON  John's  return  from  Pierre,  he  went  direct 
to  the  office.  There  was  nothing  impera- 
tive to  take  him  there  rather  than  home  and 
there  assuredly  was  no  premeditation  in  what  re- 
sulted. Tossing  his  grip  into  the  express  wagon,  he 
joined  a  travelling  companion.  During  his  absence 
the  station  had  been  moved  from  the  situation  of  its 
expectant  isolation  to  a  block  below  Main  street  in 
real  nearness  to  the  business  part  of  the  town. 

"A  darned  convenience  to  cut  out  that  mile  and  a 
half  bus  ride,"  John  remarked.  "Where  it  should 
have  been  to  start  with." 

Mr.  Millard  perforce  nodded  but  with  some 
reserve.  He  had  fallen  from  the  proprietorship  of 
an  elaborate  real  estate  company  to  the  position  of 
book-keeper  in  another  man's  wholesale  ^ocery 
establishment.  To  reduce  his  former  prominence 
to  the  significance  of  a  particle  of  the  extenuated 
common  place  out  of  which  the  promoters  blew  the 
bubble  of  the  boom,  was  to  extract  from  his  self 
esteem  the  element  of  temporary  adversity  with 
which  he  excused  the  present  source  of  his  liveli- 
hood.    To  John  the  relegation  of  Rapid  to  small 


147 


148  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

town  mediocrity  evinced  the  sagacity  of  his  predict- 
ions. They  argued  the  subject  mildly  the  three 
blocks  of  their  walk  together.  Mr.  Millard  conser- 
vatively regarded  the  change  premature,  and  John 
smiled  with  compassion. 

"So  long,"  he  said  with  that  careless  motion 
toward  his  hat  and  turned  into  the  steps  which  led 
to  his  office. 

He  had  been  away  the  months  of  March  and 
April.  Mildred  was  seated  at  the  desk  when  he  en- 
tered, and  at  the  sight  of  her  back,  he  knew  why 
he  had  come  immediately  to  the  office.  She  wore  a 
silk  waist  of  blue  and  white.  Her  heavy  hair  was 
piled  smoothly  in  familiar  coils.  There  was  a 
straight  trim  shapeliness  about  her  back.  She  turn- 
ed her  head  and  sprang  up,  crying  delightedly, 
"John!"  It  was  the  moment  that  each  woman's 
physical  expression  of  herself  must  attain  in  its 
own  way  the  beauty  of  completeness.  Mildred's 
was  a  sudden  glowing  fullness  of  life.  The  careless 
exuberance  reached  a  dignity  after  its  own  kind.  It 
was  an  expansion  that  could  not  be  resisted.  It 
radiated  the  culminating  of  spontaneous  blossom- 
ing. She  was  almost  as  tall  as  John,  every  feature 
rounded  and  distinct.  The  entire  face,  the  brown 
eyes,  the  regular  mouth,  the  cheeks  that  dimpled 
faintly,  smiled  welcomingly  without  restraint.  Her 
rich  color  deepened.  She  did  not  move.  She  was 
not  designing.  She  was  laying  no  snare  to  entrap. 
She  was  being  herself.  He,  too,  only  answered  the 
foremost  call  of  his  nature  at  the  moment,  closed 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  149 

the    door; — and    what    then    occured    is    evident. 
What  succeeded  is  not  so  outside  condemnation. 

"What  do  you  mean  John  Allen?"  she  exacted. 
If  her  composure  had  been  lost,  it  was  quickly  re- 
covered. 

John  was  still  flushed,  and  found  it  diff cult  to  con- 
trol his  voice.  "What  does  any  man  mean?"  he  re- 
plied huskily. 

"Well,  yes,  what  does  any  man  mean?"  she  de- 
manded. 

His  eyes  lowered  then  lifted.  The  manliness  that 
Mrs.  Allen  loved  straightened  the  droop  of  his 
ghoulders.  "I'll  tell  Mrs.  Allen.  She  will  get  a 
divorce  and  then  I  shall  ask  you  to  marry  me." 

"You'll  tell  her  that  you  are  going  to  marry, — 
to  marry  meV  Mildred  smiled  only  with  her  lips 
this  time. 

"Yes,"  John  maintained  against  the  smile. 

Mildred  laughed  outright  and  took  up  her  pen  as 
if  to  revert  to  her  figures.  "I  don't  know  how  she'd 
do  it,  John;  and  very  probably  you  would  never 
know  either  but  it  would  never  come  off." 

"I'd  have  to  tell  her  to  get  the  divorce,"  he  ans- 
wered. 

"Yes,  but  not  that  you  are  going  to  marry, —  to 
marry  me.  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  why,  but  she 
never  has  liked  me."  At  the  assertion  previously 
unnoted  episodes  far  back  in  his  life  with  Mrs. 
Allen  convinced  him  that  Mildred  was  right.  He 
twirled  his  watch  fob. 

Her  voice  was  guarded,  alluring.    "I  love  you. 


150  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

John,  and  it's  so  dirierent  with  you  and  Mrs.  Allen 
from  other  married  people  that  I  don't  know  why  I 
haven't  the  right  to.  I  couldn't  care  for  anyone 
else.  I  never  really  have.  I  know  it  wouldn't  be 
your  way  to  fool  with  a  girl ;  but  Mrs.  Allen  mana- 
ges so  that  you  have  seemed  to."  She  was  drawing 
little  circles  on  the  sheet  of  paper  and  hesitated  at 
the  critical  point  of  completing  a  square  of  them. 
In  the  pause  there  recurred  to  him  circumstances  in 
his  relations  with  other  women  that  did  show  up 
Mrs.  Allen  as  Mildred  hinted  she  should  be  seen. 
"I  am  a  poor  girl,"  she  went  on  winningly,  "You 
know  I  send  money  home.  I  can't  let  myself  be 
talked  about." 

"You'll  marry  me  when  I  get  the  divorce?"  John 
had  not  escaped  all  the  gambling  ventures,  in  min- 
ing stock  and  city  boulevards,  to  stake,  here  entirely 
without  security. 

"You  won't  get  it.  You'll  give  Mrs.  Allen  a  cue 
and  quick  as  a  whistle  she  will  know  the  rest, — and 
I'll  be  done  for.  Oh  John, — "  she  seemed  to  yield 
before  his  darkening  face.  He  took  the  seat  next 
to  the  desk  and  she  relinquished  the  pen  for  him 
to  hold  her  hand.  Her  nearness  was  the  one  thing 
in  the  world  that  counted  and  yet  he  was  angered. 
"John,"  she  soothed,  "I  do  trust  you  but  I  am  all 
alone  and  Mrs.  Allen  is  so  keen  and  well — "  She 
suddenly  drew  away  her  hand  and  took  up  the  pen. 
Someone  was  on  the  stairs.  John  assumed  the 
business  air  more  quickly  than  she  had  thought  him 
capable  of  doing. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  151 

When  he  went  home  for  lunch,  Mrs.  Allen,  open 
aimed,  came  down  the  walk  to  meet  him;  and  at  the 
touch  of  his  prefunctorily  kiss,  shrank  with  that 
groopirg  timidity  with  which  the  finer  nature  meets 
the  repulse  of  a  cruder  loved  one.  In  that  sharpest  of 
all  lonelinesses  by  the  side  of  the  one  most  dearly 
cared  for,  she  walked  back  to  the  porch.  He  was 
bruskly  hurried  and  while  they  waited  for  the  maid 
to  set  forth  the  meal,  he  told  her  none  of  the  details 
of  the  trip,  the  rehearsal  of  which  so  often  made 
the  occasion  of  his  return  from  somewhere  a  bright 
one  for  them  both,  but  instead  he  paced  the  length 
of  the  parlors,  about  every  third  turn  looked  at  his 
watch  and  snapped  it  shut.  The  papers  had  given 
her  the  facts  which  stood  for  his  success  in  Pierre. 
An  old  law  buttressed  by  a  new  one  would  protect 
his  lower  valley  farms  from  the  encroachments, 
upon  the  water  supply,  of  the  upper  valley  land  and 
of  the  Great  Ditch  contemplated  for  ranches  on  the 
divide.  Never  did  she  realize  more  than  to-day  the 
ability  of  the  man  who  was  such  a  boy  to  her.  He 
gave  her  no  opportunity  for  applause,  and  she  did 
not  force  it  upon  him.  Lunch  was  twenty  minutes 
of  impatience  to  be  off. 

She  made  no  effort  to  detain  him.  She  was  ex- 
hausted in  another  struggle  and  had  no  force  for 
this  one.  During  his  absence,  her  past  had  come 
back  to  harass  her, — in  no  external  way ;  in  all  that, 
ten  years  before  in  Dr.  Gillette's  office,  she  vowed  to 
achieve  she  was  secure.  She  had  not  lied.  She  had 
not  concealed,  she  had  kept  silent  and  disowned  the 


152  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

past  with  the  daily  contradiction  of  the  present. 
Then,  because  there  was  no  more  to  attain  from 
recognition,  because  she  could  not  lose  herself  in 
the  contest  to  establish  her  place  among  her  fellows, 
all  that  had  been  hatefully,  acutely  repugnant  re- 
turned to  possess  her,  tauntingly  claimed  her,  lived 
again  accentuated  against  the  contrast  of  the  last 
ten  years.  She  had  never  shuddered  at  the  trans- 
piring experience,  but  she  shuddered  at  the  memory 
that  perpetuated  it.  That  evening  Mrs.  Paine  sat 
with  her  on  the  piazza.  The  trees  were  budded, 
the  blades  of  grass  were  freshly  tipped  with  green 
and  yellow  and  white  below,  the  air  was  soft  with 
the  breath  of  spring.  Her  friend  on  the  lower  step 
laid  her  head  against  her  knee  and  talked  of  Walter. 
He  was  growing  so  tall  and  thinking  of  college.  The 
mother  was  loath  for  him  to  leave  her,  yet  expectant 
in  regard  to  his  going.  Mrs.  Allen  listened  think- 
ing of  John.  Suddenly  she  heard  only  with  her 
ears ;  and  her  demons  held  sway,  and  her  soul  cried 
for  aid  against  them;  she  would  have  drawn  her 
sister  into  the  darkness  where  they  lurked.  The 
oil  of  her  single  lamp  was  burned  out,  could  not 
light  the  dusty  haunts  from  which  they  came.  But 
at  the  thought  of  the  other's  consternation,  she 
drew  her  protectingly,  calmly.  Again  it  was  the 
abysmal  aloneness.  She  held  this  gentlest,  most 
faithful  friend,  and  there  was  no  help  in  her  own 
deepest  need. 

"You  would  be  such  a  refuge  in  sorrow,"  Mrs. 
Paine  said. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  153 

"Do  you  think  so?"  Mrs.  Allen  asked  steadily. 

"I  know  so,"  said  Mrs.  Paine  with  sweetness. 

Mrs.  Allen  went  to  the  gate  with  her  when  she 
departed  but  for  once  she  was  glad  when  she  was 
gone. 

It  was  eleven  at  night  when  Mrs.  Allen  looked 
up  from  her  desk  and  John  stood  over  her.  She  had 
been  lying  several  hours,  her  head  on  her  folded 
arms  in  a  state  abjectly  hopeless,  exhausting  like 
long  uninterrupted  hours  of  physical  toil,  dull  like 
heavy  sleep.  She  had  stirred,  as  under  a  crushing 
weight,  with  the  humiliating  sense  that  she  could 
not  rise,  that  she  could  not  connect  her  prostration, 
or  the  malady  that  had  preceded  it  with  any  ade- 
quate cause.  It  seemed  her  spirit  was  dying  and  it 
was  not  fitting  her  body  should  survive.  One  of  the 
old  fierce  flings  of  despair  and  she  would  have 
known  she  was  still  heroic  in  the  strife,  but  she  was 
exhausted.  John's  step  sounded  on  the  porch  and 
she  was  motionless.  He  was  standing  above  her 
and  she  lifted  her  head.  Her  gray  hair  tumbled 
around  her  deep  creased  face,  her  blue  eyes  looked 
out  from  unguarded  misery.  In  the  strength  of 
brute  manhood  he  glowered  upon  her.  He  was  fresh 
from  Mildred's  embrace;  Mildred's  warning  still 
rang  in  his  ears,  "She'll  make  you  tell.  I  know  she 
will." 

"Mrs.  Allen,"  the  name  came  strangely,  and  he 
would  have  withdrawn  it  but  could  not, — "four 
years  ago  you  wanted  a  divorce.    Now  I  want  one." 

"Yes,  John."    There  was  no  change  in  her  face, 


154  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

hardly  in  feeling.  Upon  the  dull  suffering  was  im- 
posed the  dull  comprehension  of  its  source.  He 
waited,  then  turned  to  go. 

"John!"  She  was  throbbing  with  the  pangs  of 
regret  that  had  ever  been  her  surest  tokens  of 
vitality. 

He  paused  unnerved  and  was  rigid  again. 

"Who  is  it  John?"  she  asked. 

From  the  concession  of  a  reluctant  profile  he 
fronted  her  squarely.  "Who  said  there  was  anyone. 
I  must  be  free.  I've  had  no  natural  youth.  What 
business  have  you  to  ask?"  His  voice  thickened 
threateningly  as  the  clenching  of  a  fist. 

"Oh,  my  boy !"  and  he  could  not  escape  the  claim  of 
her  love.  "I  want  to  know  her.  I  want — I  appreciate 
it  sounds  incongruous,  but  everything  wonderfully 
precious,  beyond  the  grasp  of  the  average  man,  is 
preposterous  to  the  common  place  conception — I 
want  to  love  her.  I  want  her  to  know  that  I  wouldn't 
keep  you  from  her.  You  are  all  I  have.  I  can't  let 
you  go  altogether.  Can't  you  understand?  Why 
shouldn't  you  tell  me?" 

He  did  understand  because  he  knew,  because  he 
was  the  only  one  who  could  ever  know  that  she 
spoke  from  a  heart  of  mother  love.  His  arms  drop- 
ped around  her.  If  she  could  have  left  it  there  she 
might  have  saved  to  them  both  a  portion  of  igno- 
rance. But  upon  the  silence  he  did  not  interrupt 
broke  the  revelation  that  made  clear  all  the  mystery 
of  her  fears. 

"It's  Mildred,"  she  stated  frantically. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  155 

He  pushed  her  off  with  a  kind  of  hatred.  "It 
isn't  Mildred.  It  isn't  anyone,"  he  declared  harshly 
and  was  gone. 

The  first  clause  denied  the  second,  the  second  con- 
firmed the  falsehood  of  the  first.  "He  lied.  I  made 
him  lie,"  was  her  thought  and  the  whole  meaning  of 
her  loss  gripped  her.  She  was  standing  flooded  with 
it  when,  like  the  lash  of  a  life  line  striking  numbed 
limbs,  there  broke  upon  her  passive  acceptance,  a 
long,  insistent,  pealing  jangle  of  the  door  bell.  Some- 
one held  the  finger  pressed  hard,  imperiously  upon 
the  button.  The  ringing  ceased,  the  door  opened  and 
Margie  Paine  ran  through  the  darkened  hallway 
and  parlor  mto  the  lighted  room.  At  the  strange 
aloftness  of  the  tall  black  gowned  figure  and  the 
desolate  stricken  face,  the  propelling  urgency  which 
brought  her  thus  far  precipitately  left  her  unsus- 
tained,  and  she  paused,  a  tall  straight  wisp  of  a 
child,  an  appealing  image  of  bewildered  disarray. 
Between  the  folds  of  the  long  straight  coat,  hung 
the  lines  of  a  blue  kimona.  The  silken  scarf,  hastily 
caught  up  fell  back  from  a  fair  slender  face. 

"Yes,  dear,  tell  me.  Something  has  happened," 
and  Margie  sobbed  at  the  sound  of  her  voice. 

"I  came — mamma  wants  you — Walter, — I  can't 
say  it — they  are  bringing  him  home  from  Brennan. 
He  is  so  reckless,  he  won't  ever  listen  and  he  fell." 
She  was  weeping  fiercely  now. 

"He  was  going  to  Chicago  on  the  cattle  train," 
Mrs.  Allen  soliloquized.  "He  is  killed?"  she  added. 
Her  voice  was  pitched  low  but  sharp  and  clear. 


156  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"Yes  and  cut  to  pieces,"  Margie  was  sudc^enly 
still.  It  was  the  terror  and  excitement  that  spread 
through  the  house  that  sent  her  speeding  on  her 
errand.  Out  of  Mrs.  Allen's  voice,  was  borne  the 
reality  of  her  brother's  death." 

"He's  dead.  He's  dead.  I  came  right  away."  She 
was  ashamed  that  it  had  not  penetrated  that  it  was 
death. 

"He's  dead,"  she  whispered  caring  for  no- 
thing but  that  Walter  was  dead. 

John  opened  a  door  above  and  called,  "What  is 
it?"  They  went  into  the  hall.  At  the  foot  of  the 
■tairs,  Mrs.  Allen  spoke  up  to  him. 

"Good  God!"  The  exclamation  was  all  sympathy. 

"I  must  go  back,"  Margie's  white  lips  were  tight. 

"No,  wait  a  moment.  I  shall  prepare  to  stay. 
You  can  go  with  me,"    Mrs.  Allen  commanded. 

"I'll  take  her  in  a  second,"  and  John  went  back 
for  his  coat.  Mrs.  Allen  started  up  the  stairs  as  he 
came  down  and  each  stopped  on  the  middle  landing. 
"You  are  going  to  Mrs.  Paine,"  he  said. 

"Yes." 

They  paused  saying  nothing.  To  each  it  was  like 
the  would-be  suicide  awakening  to  the  dearness  of 
the  existence  he  had  attempted  to  escape.  He  went 
on  down  the  stairs.  "Poor  little  girl,"  he  said 
gently  to  Margie.  Tlie  door  closed  on  them  and 
Mrs.  Allen  grasped  the  banister. 

"If  it  might  have  been  death.  If  he  might  never 
have  come  back  from  Pierre  to  refute  the  loving 
manliness  of  the  farewell  with  which  he  departed." 


CHAPTER  V 


IN  the  early  morning  Mrs.  Allen  knelt  with  her 
right  arm  around  her  friend. 
"Close  your  eyes,  dear,  even  if  you  cannot 
sleep",  she  begged,  and  laid  her  left  hand  over  them. 
When  she  lifted  it  Mrs.  Paine  had  obeyed.  In  res- 
ponse to  a  groping  movement  she  surmdered  the 
hand  to  the  clinging  clasp  of  Mrs.  Paine's  fingers; 
and  was  appropriated  entirely,  could  not  stir  a 
muscle  except  in  sympathy. 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Paine  turned  her  face  on  the  pillow 
and  quoted  from  all  the  empty  words  that  had  been 
uttered  since  midnight,  "He  never  had  an  evil 
thought." 

"In  the  years  that  come  you  will  seem  to  follow 
him  into  a  stainless  manhood,"  Mrs.  Allen  added. 

"I  believe  I  shall;  but  oh! — "  Mrs.  Paine  opened 
her  eyes  and  at  the  sight  of  the  face  above  her,  the 
rising  sob  was  stifled.  "How  can  you  feel  so  much 
for  another?"  The  question  kept  her  from  falling 
into  the  abyss  of  her  own  absorbing  grief  at  the 
verge  of  which  yawning  depth  she  was  stumbling. 

"Can't  you  rest?"  Mrs.  Allen  answered.  Each 
moment  it  seemed  the  next  she  must  tear  herself 


157 


168  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

away  yet  the  touch  of  her  hands,  the  expression  of 
eyes  and  lips,  of  the  lines  of  her  face  gave  out  the 
infinite  support  and  tenderness  that  reaches  be- 
neath all  smiles  and  sobs. 

"I  shall  rest,"  Mrs.  Paine  whispered,  "in  the  arms 
of  the  Lord  and — "  she  modified  honestly — "of  you." 

She  lay  still  and  only  by  the  varying  pressure  of 
the  fingers  around  her  hand,  Mrs.  Allen  knew  she 
did  not  sleep.  Twice  she  attempted  to  draw  away 
and  the  clasp  tightened  and  held  her.  At  last,  Mrs. 
Paine  did  sleep  and  Mrs.  Allen  stealthily  released 
herself.  Standing,  she  tensely  lifted  her  arms 
above  her  head  and  her  face  worked.  What  a  ridi- 
culous episode  if  she  should  arouse  the  household 
with  a  shriek  of  agony.  She  lowered  her  arms  and 
went  noiselessly  across  the  room.  The  top  sheet 
of  an  open  tablet  on  Mrs.  Paine's  desk  was  scatter- 
ed with  telegrams,  first  maudlin  and  wordy  then 
trimmed  to  ten  word  suscintness.  She  sat  down 
and  started  to  tear  off  the  page  but  the  breaking  of 
the  glue  resounded  above  the  even  pulse  of  Mrs. 
Paine's  breathing.  Pushing  it  back,  she  reached  for 
note  paper  and  wrote : — 
"John,  dear: — 

It  is  morning  and  Mrs.  Paine  is  sleeping. 
I  have  asked  Fred  to  meet  us  to-morrow, — no,  I 
mean  to-day,  Tuesday,  eleven  a.  m.  at  our  house. 
The  divorce  can  be  obtained  quickly,  without  publi- 
city. 

"Can't  our  love  be  the  same  as  it  has  been?    That 
you  may  know  my  heart  does  not  hesitate,  I  let 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  159 

nothing  afford  an  excuse  for  delay. 

"With  love,  all  love,  of  friend,  sister,  mother, 
every  love  except  of  wife, 

Mrs.  Allen" 

Without  pausing,  on  the  next  sheet,  she  addressed 
Fred,  "Please  meet  myself  and  John  to-day,  eleven 
o'clock,  at  our  house.  I  know  you  will  come.  It  is 
I  who  ask  it.  It  will  be  possible  to  leave  Mrs.  Paine 
only  a  few  moments  so  we  must  each  of  us  be 
prompt. 

Sincerely, 

"Mrs.  Allen." 

The  following  morning  a  few  minutes  before  the 
appointed  time,  Fred  entered  John's  office.  "I 
thought  I'd  call  for  you  as  I  passed,"  he  announced 
from  the  doorway. 

Mildred  bent  over  her  work,  ears  alert. 

John  took  his  hat  without  a  word.  When  they 
came  into  the  street,  "I  appreciate  your  compliance," 
he  said. 

"Not  at  all,  Mrs.  Allen  compelled  me",  Fred  gra- 
ciously waved  aside  the  thanks. 

"I  did  not  intend  to  infer  you  would  come  in  fond- 
ness for  me",  not  for  the  first  time  John  wasted 
anger  on  Fred.  In  the  answering  silence  the  wound 
to  his  self  pride  festered. 

"Mrs.  Allen", — John  cleared  his  throat.  He 
thought  the  business  in  hand  had  assuredly  been 
stated — "has  wanted  a  divorce  for  a  long  time." 

"Indeed,  she  ordinarily  acts  with  alacrity." 
John  bit  his  lip.     He  began  to  feel  that  Fred's 


160  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

connection  with  the  case  was  indelicate.  There 
were  lawyers  who  could  have  been  held  within  the 
bounds  of  legal  advice.  Mrs.  Allen  had  from  the 
first  rushed  ahead  regardless  of  decency  and  of  him- 
self. "Don't  you  think  I  have  a  right  to  my  free- 
dom?" he  flarred.     His  face  was  very  red. 

"Your  freedom?"  Fred  sneered  so  normally  that 
an  accentuation  of  the  expression  could  be  detected 
only  in  the  discomfort  it  produced. 

"Fred,  you've  never  been  my  friend  since  I  mar- 
ried. If  you  think  so  well  of  Mrs.  Allen,  why 
should  it  have  been  unpardonable  for  me  to  have 
married  her?" 

"My  affection  didn't  keep  her  from  being  a  hard 
case",  Fred  laughed. 

"And  you  treat  me  like  a  cad  for  desiring  a 
divorce." 

"She  is  a  fine  woman, — due  no  doubt  to  later  as- 
sociations." The  tone  of  Fred's  laugh  was  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  same  key." 

"I  was  merely  a  boy",  John  fumbled  for  some 
source  of  exoneration.  Fred's  condemnation  was 
hard  to  ignore  and  even  more  difficult  to  combat, 
being  assertive  only  in  unworded  confirmation  of 
inner  misgivings  which  the  condemned  one  attempt- 
ed to  deny. 

"Ah,  my  son,  father  to  the  man",  he  agreed. 

"Perhaps,  you  would  like  to  marry  her  yourself." 
If  it  was  an  attempt  at  counter  irritation,  by  the 
nature  of  the  surface  it  struck  it  could  only  come 
bounding  back. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  161 

"Perhaps,  if  you  do  the  square  thing."  Fred  did 
not  laugh  this  time.  His  smile  was  more  signifi- 
cant. 

But  John,  in  missing  the  double  implication  of  his 
thrust,  escaped  the  slash  althogether.  Of  course  he 
would  do  the  square  thing.  He  did  not  have  to  pre- 
pare by  penetential  meditation  to  be  sure  of  that. 
Moreover  they  reached  the  door  of  the  house  and 
he  was  occupied  in  opening  it.  There  was  a  pre- 
ceptible  pause  which  recalled  that  Fred  had  never 
entered  the  house  before;  then,  as  if  the  coming 
were  a  social  habit,  a  quick  step  through  the  door- 
way to  take  Mrs.  Allen's  hand  also  recalled  that  his 
absence  had  been  expressed  in  continued  avoidance 
rather  than  avowed  unwillingness.  In  that  hand 
clasp  of  Mrs.  Allen  and  Fred,  John  suffered  a  feel- 
ing of  jealous  isolation;  and  likewise  in  the  con- 
ference of  three,  he  seemed  to  be  left  out  like  a  child 
whose  welfare  is  being  considered  by  his  elders  with 
sacrificial  solicitude  but  with  only  a  very  nominal 
deference  to  his  own  views.  When  they  were  seat- 
ed, Mrs.  Allen  spoke  at  once  of  the  matter  that  had 
brought  them  together. 

"John  has  told  you  ?  I  wish  a  divorce  and  he  has 
given  his  consent." 

To  the  slight  interrogative  inflection,  Fred's  face 
assented. 

"You  will  be  my  lawyer?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,  your  lawyer." 

"I  can  file  the  complaint.  He  will  answer.  Wave 
time.    It  can  be  tried  in  chamber  and  granted  before 


162  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

the  Journal  has  wind  of  it." 

John  fidgeted.  He  had  not  thought  it  out.  There 
was  no  opening  for  him  in  the  conversation. 

"The  alimony?"    Fred  responded. 

"I  desired  to  speak  of  that.  As  my  lawyer  you 
must  understand.  When  I  married  John,  I  paid  him 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  It  was  not  as  when  a  young 
wife  puts  her  capital  into  the  company  of  two.  It 
was  payment  in  advance  for, — for,  what  is  now, 
value  received.  It  was  a  contract  the  terms  of 
which  have  been  met  on  his  side  as  on  mine.  Rapid 
takes  me  for  what  I  am.  As  long  as  I  live  I  shall 
be  called,  'Mrs.  Allen.'  If  from  love  John  gives 
me  ought  for  my  old  age,  in  love  I  shall  receive  it. 
He  and  his  lawyer  can  make  out  an  agreement  and 
I  shall  sign  it  without  demur." 

Fred  sat  with  his  hands  on  the  arms  of  the  large 
leather  chair.  "Mrs.  Allen" — ^He  spoke  with  the 
sweet  seriousness  which  was  the  more  wonderfully 
sweet  because  so  seldom  heard  from  his  lips.  "I 
wouldn't  do  that.  It  isn't  the  money.  It  is  what 
we  are  unworthy  to  possess  unless  we  can  take  it 
without  testing,  that  you  may  lose." 

"It  is  not  for  a  test.  It  is  for  a  token.  And  I 
shall  have  it."  In  the  quick  proud  look  for  John 
there  went  out  from  her  the  last  ecstasy  of  faith. 

"I  hope  so",  Fred  answered  rising.  John  did  not 
know  him  as  the  same  man  with  whom  he  walked 
along  the  street  fifteen  minutes  before,  but  there 
came  to  him  vividly,  the  image  of  the  man  he  had 
bunked  with  until  the  stage  came  into  Rapid  that 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  163 

October  day.  If  now  that  voice  and  manner  had 
been  for  him,  John  might  have  been  saved  to  his 
truer  self.  Departing,  Fred  precluded  any  inclina- 
tion on  John's  part  to  accompany  him.  With  the 
hardness  he  had  tempered  to  protect  his  own  sensi- 
tiveness, he  meted  out  his  contempt;  deftly,  goad- 
ingly  John  was  passed  over  in  his  leave  taking. 

John  did  not  follow  them  to  the  door,  and  when 
Mrs.  Allen  returned  to  the  back  parlor,  he  stood  with 
his  hand  on  the  rim  of  his  hat. 

"Don't  John!  Don't  seem  to  want  to  be  gone. 
There  isn't  much  time  but  there  is  enough." 

His  forehead  drew  down  between  them  and  the 
look  of  hateful  manhood  greeted  her  from  his  eyes. 

"I  have  one  request.  I  did  ask  for  a  divorce  four 
years  ago  but  I  asked  for  it  then.  I  cannot  regret 
these  happy  years  yet  that  you  refused,  and  I 
yielded  to  your  decision  gives  me  a  claim.  You 
know  I  do  not  often  press  claims.  But  I  press  this 
one.'* 

"Well,  what  is  it?    He  was  indignant  in  advance. 

"Promise  me," — Seeing  the  answer  in  his  clouded 
face,  she  wavered  but,  by  what  ever  name  she  might 
call  them,  her  nature  exacted  pledges.  Her  persis- 
tency ignored  the  omens  of  defeat.  "Promise  me 
that  you  will  let  six  months  go.  by  before  you 
marry." 

She  shrank  from  his  anger.  It  mounted  to  crush- 
ing rage.  "I  can  fight  for  the  divorce  if  you  do  not 
give  it."     His  voice  fell  heavy  as  an  iron  sledge. 

"You  know  I  have  given  it."    Thus  far  she  was 


164  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

calm.  Then  there  was  the  break.  "It's  for  your 
sake  I  ask  it." 

"For  my  sake!  As  if  I  were  in  knickerbockers, 
my  character  to  be  molded  and  hedged  about  by 
your  solicitude." 

"Why  shouldn't  I  desire  it  to  be  a  woman  too 
pure,  too  reverent  of  the  marriage  bond  to  take  you 
fresh  from  its  demolition?" 

As  an  intuitive  certainty  had  informed  her,  it 
made  plain  to  him  that  she  knew  all  that  had  been  so 
carefully  guarded,  all  that  he  had  lied  to  conceal. 
He  had  nothing  upon  which  her  penetration  did  not 
intrude.  From  her  wizard  insight  he  cried  for  re- 
lease. 

"Purity !  The  sacred  marriage  bond !"  His  voice 
thundered  as  the  rumble  before  the  culminating 
crash.    "What  right  have  you  to  talk  of  these?" 

"Right!"  Her  eyes  defied.  Her  face  was  bright 
as  the  sky  illumined  with  the  lightning  flash  that 
leaves  it  darker.  After  the  first  word  the  light  was 
gone.  Hers  was  the  claim  that  knows  not  its  own 
glory.  "The  right  of  the  Magdeline  to  spill  her 
ointment  on  the  feet  of  the  Lord,  of  the  barren  wo- 
man to  pray  for  her  sister's  child." 

He  took  his  hat.  There  was  no  argument  but 
escape. 

She  caught  him  and  held  her  hands  on  his  shoul- 
ders. He  dropped  his  to  his  side  and  remained 
frozenly  immovable  with  averted  face. 

"Six  months  is  so  short  a  time  to  wait  for  a  true 
love."    The  pleading  nettled  him. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  165 

"You  must  let  me  go."  The  angry  rumble  deep- 
ened. He  lifted  his  man's  hands,  pushed  her  force- 
fully into  a  chair,  roughly  pinioned  her,  loosened  his 
hold,  and  was  gone. 

Ten  minutes  later  she  went  back  to  Mrs.  Paine. 


CHAPTER  VI 


(4  W  OHN,  keep  down  any  alimony  wrangle," 
I  Mildred  counseled.  She  occupied  his 
office  chair  and  tilted  it  back  with  her 
toe  on  the  corner  of  the  desk. 

"Thank  heavens!  I  am  spared  that!"  John's 
introductory  phrase  was  purely  exclamatory  and 
the  last  a  malediction  for  what  it  did  not  include. 
The  furrows  were  becoming  fixed  between  his  eyes 
and  Mildred's  placid  unruffled  presence  did  not  stay 
their  deepening.  The  divorce  as  a  requisite  pre- 
lude to  marriage  was  to  John  a  harrassing  persecu- 
tion of  fate. 

'You  dear,  magnanimous,  afflicted  boy!"  Mildred 
soothed.  "Just  there's  the  rub.  It's  on  the  money 
phase  of  the  proposition  that  you  assuredly  will  be 
misjudged." 

"I  shall  do  what's  right,"  John  asserted.  That 
prefatory  announcement  was  the  pasting  of  a  label 
for  any  decision  that  might  be  evolved.  It  was  a 
syllogism  to  him,  that  if  he  desired  to  be  right,  and 
did  what  he  desired,  what  he  did  must  indisputably 
be  right.  "But  everything  is  so  tied  up.  I  haven't 
an  acre  of  land  or  a  share  of  bank  or  mining  stock 


166 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  167 

that  I  am  ready  to  surrender  to  the  ruination  of  a 
woman's  business  indiscretion." 

"How  much  does  she  stand  for?"  Mildred  was 
imperturbably  inclined  to  reduce  the  problem  to 
terms  of  addition  and  subtraction.  She  rocked 
comfortably  back  and  forth,  and  her  skirts  fell 
down  from  the  polished  tip  of  her  shoe  in  ripples 
of  silk  ruffling  between  trim  boundaries  of  serge. 

"She  leaves  it  entirely  with  me,"  he  replied. 

Mildred's  chair  dropped,  and  her  feet  came  to  the 
floor.    "I  call  that  clever!" 

"Clever?"    John  had  not  so  considered  it." 

"Don't  you  see?"  Mildred  put  her  hands  on  her 
knees  and  looked  down  at  her  feet.  "If  she  made  a 
big  claim,  people  might  say  she  had  been  exorbitant ; 
if  she  made  a  small  one,  no  one  could  find  fault 
with  you  that  it  was  not  larger.  By  the  travesty 
of  humility  and  confidence,  she  fixes  upon  you  the 
criticism  of  the  town." 

"Good  God !  It  takes  a  woman  to  trick  a  man." 

"And  a  woman  to  rescue  the  victim."  Neither 
in  word  or  thought  did  Mildred  take  issue  to  John's 
generalization.  She  had  ever  basked  in  masculine 
patronage  and  so  ridden  in  contemptuous  acquies- 
cence above  any  bitterness  toward  her  sex.  She 
raised  one  knee  above  the  other  and  once  more  con- 
templated her  toe  as  the  sustaining  point  for  falling 
undulations  of  silk.  Since  she  had  lately  rehemmed 
the  bottom  frills  before  and  after  office  hours,  the 
satisfaction  of  the  glance  was  not  unmixed  vanity, 
but  had  something  of  the  thrifty  workman's  right- 


168  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

eous  pleasure  in  viewing  the  successful  renovation 
of  a  modest  habitation.  "If  you  give  her  land  and 
she  sells  it  at  the  most  inauspicious  moment,  or 
stock  and  she  keeps  it  till  it  falls  in  value,  the  ver- 
dict will  be  that  you  so  designed  it.  Who's  going  to 
remember  how  you  have  supported  her  these  ten 
years,  how  she  persisted  in  living  in  a  small  house 
when  you  were  consumed  with  eagerness  to  build  a 
large  one,  how  she  determinedly  stayed  at  home 
when  you  went  on  jaunts,  how  she  abhorred  latest 
styles  and  elaborate  parties.  And  she  would  live 
just  the  same  if  she  had  a  million.  Her  idea  of  feli- 
city is  to  sit  in  the  back  parlor  with  Mrs.  Paine, 
hem  table  linen  and  expound  the  mercy  of  God's 
chastisements  or  to  squat  in  the  back  yard  and  hoe 
out  dandelion  roots  from  around  the  rose  bushes. 
I  can't  see  what  she  does  want  with  so  much  money 
except  to  cripple  you  and  hinder  us  from  having 
things  while  we  are  young  and  know  how  to  enjoy 
them.  If  she  knew  I  was  in  it,  that  would  be  reason 
enough.  And  I  surmise  she  does  know.  I  tell  you 
John,  she's  a  witch.  I  believe  she  brews  potions  and 
finds  out  things  by  necromancy." 

John  was  naturally  responsive  to  Mildred's  wit 
but  his  face  did  not  relax  over  it  to-day.  "But  does 
she  want  so  much?"  he  protested.  Deeper  verities 
than  the  facts  and  deductions  she  had  set  forth  so 
logically  rose  in  John's  mind  to  arraign  them. 

It  must  be  granted,  Mildred  had  no  knowledge  of 
the  marriage  contract, — it  was  excusable  that  like 
Mrs.  Paine  she  should  refuse  credence  to  all  rumors. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  169 

"If  she  don't  want  a  great  deal,  why  didn't  she  set 
some  reasonable  amount,  or  ask  for  some  specific 
property?"  she  demanded. 

"Whatever  I  do  I  shall  be  blamed,"  John  answer- 
ed. 

"So  you  might  as  well  do  what's  right  and  not 
care,"  Mildred  agreed. 

"Damn  it!  What  people  think!"  The  tone  was 
defiantly  heavy  but  it  came  from  no  greater  depth 
than  the  roof  of  his  mouth. 

Tuesday  morning  Mrs.  Allen  went  to  Fred's  office 
to  make  her  depositions.  It  had  been  conceded  that 
in  the  trial  the  next  day  her  presence  might  be  ex- 
cused owing  to  the  bereavement  in  the  Paine  house- 
hold. She  had  sent  a  note  requesting  John  to  meet 
her  there  with  the  alimony  agreement.  He  sent  the 
paper  without  apology  for  his  failure  to  appear  in 
person.  She  did  not  speak  as  if  she  had  expected 
him.  Fred  assisted  her  very  kindly  in  setting  forth 
plausible,  unvindictive  claims  for  the  divorce. 
When  he  considered  that  the  legal  exigencies  had 
been  met,  he  handed  her  the  long  typewritten  folios 
upon  which  was  the  answer  to  her  last  challenge  to 
life  for  a  guarantee  of  faith  in  love.  While  she  read 
it  out  between  the  lines  of  legal  phraesology,  Fred 
sat  opposite  with  folded  hands,  manifestingly  fol- 
lowing her,  yet  without  obtrusiveness.  At  the  end 
of  the  last  page  she  lifted  her  eyes  and  they  looked 
at  each  other.  Neither  flinched.  Their  faces  did 
not  question.  It  was  a  death  certificate  that  lay  be- 
tween them.     They  did  not  dispute  its  meaning". 


170  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

"The  death  of  a  soul,  a  boy's  beautiful  soul,"  she 
said. 

Fred's  hushed  delicate  face  did  not  deny  it. 

"I  have  killed  it,  strangled  it  in  my  suffocating 
love,  sold  it  for  the  less  precious  boon  of  my  own 
salvation,"  and  she  shivered  as  she  shivered  that 
day  in  Dr.  Gillette's  office. 

"It  never  lived,"  Fred  answered. 

"May  I  be  judged  in  the  judgment  of  Israel's  God. 
I  want  no  mercy,"  she  replied. 

"One  might  almost  laugh,"  Fred  observed  se- 
riously. 

"Land  without  irrigation  rights !  Stock  of  a  bank 
ready  for  the  receiver !"  she  groaned.  "But  there  is 
our  home,  my  home.  It  wouldn't  bring  much  but  I 
love  it.  I  am  glad  he  thought  of  that.  He  knew 
I'd  want  that.  I  would  like  to  take  it  and  refuse 
the  other.  I  can't  let  him  deceive  himself  with  a 
pretense.  I  won't  starve.  I  always  could  make 
money." 

"You  are  older,"  Fred  argued.  "It  is  only  a  part 
of  what  is  yours.  Wouldn't  Mrs.  Paine  say  you 
were  accountable  for  its  use?  You  can  make  that 
upper  valley  profitable.  Of  course  Black  Hills  Bank 
stock," — and  Fred  did  laugh.  "As  for  John,  no- 
thing will  alter  him.  Nothing  really  alters  any  of 
us.     Does  it?" 

"Yes,  yes,  we  learn  to  see."  . 

"If  we  have  no  eyes,  none  are  supplied  us.  But 
you  who  have  must  command  the  means  to  help 
where  the  blind  find  only  pampered  fortune." 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  171 

"Curse  again  with  my  vision  and  my  unearned 
ducats !" 

"If  the  vision  curses  it  curses  only  yourself,"  he 
comforted. 

"It  cursed  him,"  she  protested.  *0h!  might  this 
little  part  of  the  wealth  I  lent  him  hold  all  its 
curse.' "  "As  I  promised  I  accept  what  he  gives, 
and  I  shall  love,  love  love  to  the  end"  and  she  slowly 
took  up  the  pen. 


CHAPTER  VII 


CATHARINE  entered  the  small  dingy  hallway 
of  the  boarding  house,  hung  her  hat  and  note 
book  on  the  rickety  old  fashioned  rack  and 
turned  to  the  mail  box  for  her  letters.  She 
shifted  them  into  an  orderly  heap,  then  passed  them 
quickly  through  her  hands,  at  the  same  time  moving 
toward  a  chair  by  the  window.  The  import  of  some 
was  evident  from  a  glance  at  the  envelope ;  some  re- 
quired at  least  an  inspection  of  the  signature  within 
and  others  a  hurried  perusal.  There  were  invita- 
tions to  teas  and  other  social  functions  of  the  last 
week  of  college  mixed  in  with  bills  receipted  and  un- 
receipted. Yes,  and  Dr.  Williams  would  be  glad  to 
have  her  prepare  the  slides  for  certain  microscopic 
work.  She  figured  on  the  back  of  the  envelope  with 
her  pencil,  and  with  a  relieved  sigh  decided  she 
could  pull  through  commencement.  All  told,  from 
the  expected  parchment  itself,  to  the  shoe  laces  and 
hair  pins  purchased  during  the  four  years,  she  had 
kept  within  the  four  hundred  dollars  a  year.  It  had 
been  hard  only  because  of  the  knowledge  that  the 
petty  economies  and  toilsome  vacations  were  im- 
posed as  a  penalty  for  daring  to  choose  for  herself. 


172 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  173 

Just  now,  however,  even  that  was  forgotten  in  the 
satisfaction  of  achievement. 

Moreover,  the  protruding  corner  of  a  pale  blue 
envelope  excited  undiluted  cheerfullness.  It  was  a 
characteristic  communication  from  Margie  whose 
penmanship  had  passed  from  the  model  curves  of 
the  grammar  grades  to  more  original  but  less  eli- 
gible high  school  crinkles.  She  inclosed  money  for 
certain  small  purchases  and  gave  minute  directions 
concerning  the  articles  desired.  A  most  beautiful 
graduating  present  was  in  the  way  of  construction 
for  "her  doctor  sister."  She  was,  "so  proud  of  her 
darling  Kitty"  and  marked  off  each  day  on  her 
calendar  till  her  sister's  return.  Catharine  mar- 
veled gratefully  at  a  child's  memory,  as  she  passed 
the  tinted  stationery  to  the  bottom. 

Suddenly  her  hands  paused,  and  her  breath  caught 
in  her  throat.  She  knew  it  would  come.  A  week  ago 
the  papers  reported  that  Mr.  Burton  and  some  of 
his  companions  had  sailed  for  America.  But  at  the 
end  of  a  college  course,  a  week  is  as  an  hour.  His 
letter  followed  so  fast  upon  her  repressed  expectan- 
cy. Besides  she  had  no  assurance  of  his  coming  to 
her.  In  the  first  hard  year  of  her  undertaking,  she 
ruthlessly  cut  herself  off  from  him  as  from  other 
associations  that  were  dear.  One  tired,  anxious 
night  she  wrote  the  final  words.  "I  am  resolved  to 
go  through  with  what  I  have  begun  and  dare  not 
dissipate  my  already  somewhat  dilapidated  facul- 
ties in  fruitless  discussion  concerning  your  aversion 
to  my  work.    Since  you  cannot  concede  to  me  the 


174  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

responsibility  of  choosing  the  details  of  my  life  so 
long  as  we  are  bethrothed,  in  assuming  it,  I  release 
myself  and  you  from  all  the  pledges  we  have  made 
to  each  other. 

As  this  will  be  my  last  letter,  I  wish  to  say,  I  be- 
lieve as  eagerly  as  ever  that  you  will  attain  the  best 
manhood.  If  my  faith  is  any  incentive,  as  it  seem- 
ed to  be,  it  is  yours  now,  and  always  to  the  utmost. 

But,  as  I  give  it  back  to  you,  I  take  my  own  free- 
dom, even  to  marrying  another  man  if  I  could  desire 
it. 

Yours, 

Catharine." 

While  the  girl  had  still  lingered  over  an  impas- 
sioned postcript,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door; 
and,  as  she  turned  to  welcome  the  intruding  caller, 
with  an  infromal  greeting,  her  hands  quickly  fold- 
ed the  letter  into  its  envelope,  sealed,  directed  and 
tossed  it  aside. 

That  was  over  three  years  ago.  This  was  the 
answer.  It  was  written  from  New  York.  She  ran 
her  pencil  down  the  end  of  the  envelope,  pulled  out 
the  flimsy  sheet  and  read: 

"Dear   Catharine, 

Arrived  this  morning.     Shall  come  at 
once  to  Philadelphia.     Telegraph  your  address  im- 
mediately.   I  send  this  in  care  of  the  college. 
Yours  as  ever, 
Henry." 

The  evening  of  the  next  day  he  came  and  was  re- 
ceived in  the  so-called  family  sitting  room  of  the 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  175 

boarding  house.  It  was  in  the  front  of  the  second 
floor,  facing  the  narrow  street  below.  Catharine 
heard  his  step  on  the  stair,  paused  from  her 
measured  tread  up  and  down  the  room  and  waited. 
She  stood  by  the  side  of  a  small  table,  from  its 
traditionary  position  in  the  room  known  as  the 
center  table.  It  supported  a  tin  copper  colored  lamp 
which  emitted  a  dim  light  through  the  double  obs- 
truction of  smutty  chimney  and  dusty  paper  shade. 
Sad-eyed  Madonnas  looked  dismally  down  from  the 
walls.  The  exalted  rapture  of  their  expressions 
had  perished  in  the  printing  operation.  Catharine 
herself  presented  no  brightening  contrast  to  her 
surroundings.  In  the  old  days  a  touch  of  the  illus- 
trious pervaded  her  plain  features.  Now  two  small 
lines  diverging  from  the  middle  of  her  forehead  in 
the  direction  of  either  eye,  fixed  the  tone  of  her  face 
more  in  accordance  with  its  general  outline. 

Henry  came  upon  her  tall  and  straight  in  his  add- 
ed manhood,  impatient  for  the  meeting.  During 
the  past  four  years  he  kept  this  moment  before  him 
and  longed  for  it  anew  as  each  fresh  token  of  ability 
and  success  was  heaped  upon  him.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
changed  conditions,  he  could  not  evade,  the  picture 
he  made  for  himself  was  always  set  in  the  large  airy 
rooms  of  Catharine's  western  home,  where  the 
lavish  golden  flames  from  the  pine  logs  leaped  up 
between  the  andirons,  and  the  sound  of  the  wind 
sweeping  from  the  prairie  to  the  canyon  gorged 
mountains  beyond,  spoke  of  scope  and  freedom,  un- 
tamed forces  without,  calm  and  repose  within.    For 


176  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

him  the  four  years  had  been  ones  of  strengthening 
sinews  and  growing  powers.  He  would  bask  in 
Catharine's  effortless  strength  that  should  have 
passed  beyond  him,  a  beacon  light  always  bright 
and  never  for  a  moment  dim  from  added  fuel. 

The  two-faced  each  other  as  strangers  without 
means  of  introduction,  till,  with  a  melting  flash  of 
her  old  abandonment,  Catharine  went  toward  him. 

"How  you  have  grown,  Henry!"  She  stretched 
out  her  hands  smiling,  trembling. 

He  held  them  crushed  in  his,  looked  at  her  and 
at  the  four  close  walls  about  them.  A  fierce  anger 
rose  against  her.  She  had  cheated  them  both.  But 
quick  above  his  resentment  swelled  the  passionate 
tenderness  of  his  larger  manhood.  Her  obstinacy 
was  forgiven  and  her  old  self  would  revive  in  the 
ease  and  honor  of  his  success.  He  threw  her  hands 
away  and,  with  his  man's  arms,  drew  her  close. 
She  yielded  without  a  protest. 

"Why  do  I  find  you  here,  Catharine?"  he  demand- 
ed wrathfully,  still  holding  her. 

She  did  not  answer,  but  led  him  to  the  low  camel 
hair  sofa,  and  made  him  talk  of  self,  working  back 
from  the  joy  thrill  his  letter  brought  her,  to  his  ar- 
rival in  New  York,  then  his  voyage  home,  and  at  last 
to  the  days  in  Paris.  He  poured  it  out  to  her,  the 
uninterrupted  process  of  his  achievement,  as  if  it 
were  no  more  his  than  hers.  She  leaned  back 
radiantly  happy,  at  rest  in  his  victorious  gladness. 

She  too  had  won  her  laurels.  Her  fellow  students 
honored  her  as  above  envy.     But  the  crown  was 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  177 

heavy  with  unforgotten  hardships  and  discourage- 
ments. She  willingly  laid  it  aside.  On  the  morrow 
it  must  be  fastened  down  with  thorns. 

They  went  for  a  sail  and  waited  on  the  warm 
rocks  in  the  mid-day  sun  of  the  early  spring  day,  till 
the  hour  for  the  return  of  the  ship.  He  was  urgent 
for  their  immediate  marriage.  It  galled  him  to  leave 
her  in  the  stuffy  boarding  house  another  day.  In- 
deed he  saw  no  real  reason  for  waiting  till  after 
Commencement.  Thus  far  the  acquisition  of  taboo- 
ed knowledge  had  not  intruded  itself  and  he  accept- 
ed the  unavoidable  conditions  as  a  misfortune  to  be 
deplored  and  silently  overlooked.  Even  in  the  stage 
of  his  most  bitter  protest,  he  could  not  have  antici- 
pated her  present  attitude. 

She  tossed  pebbles  into  the  waves,  and  at  last 
spoke  reluctantly.  Her  voice  trembled  in  anticipa- 
tion of  his  pain  and  her  own.  "I  am  afraid,"  she 
said,  "we  shall  have  to  wait  another  year.  I  wish 
to  serve  as  interne  in  a  hospital  before  I  begin 
practice?" 

"Practice!    And  when  do  you  intend  to  practice?" 

"As  long  as  I  live,  Henry." 

The  man  could  not  believe  she  was  in  earnest. 
"If  it  is  a  joke,  Catharine,  I  fail  to  catch  the  point." 

"Oh  Henry,  I  am  too  weary  to  joke."  She  looked 
up  with  pleading  misery.  "My  God,  I  wish  I  could 
see  it  your  way,  and  wasn't  forced  to  see  it  mine." 

Henry  straightened  himself.  Her  voice  excited 
sudden  appreciation  of  his  magnanimity  in  passing 
over  her  former  disregard  of  his  opinion  as  to  what 


17a     EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

things  were  fitting  for  women.  It  was  her  father's 
air  of  abused  indulgence  confronting  her  again. 
The  man's  voice  was  assertive,  deliberate  and  cold. 
"It  is  impossible,"  he  said  truthfully,  "for  me  to 
detect  the  slightest  sanity  in  your  purpose.  When 
at  last  I  command  a  position  worthy  of  you,  why  do 
you  insist  upon  subjecting  me  to  the  igominy  of 
having  my  wife  hold  daily  office  hours,  and  I  sup- 
pose carry  a  leather  case  about  the  streets?" 

Catharine  sighed  hopelessly.  Four  years  ago  she 
could  have  conceived  no  palliative  for  another  act- 
ing from  her  present  conviction.  Life  had  compel- 
led her  to  believe  as  she  did.  It  was  not  choice. 
Feeling  that  no  power  of  words  unenforced  by  ex- 
perience could  convince,  she  spoke  without  anima- 
tion. "If  I  were  an  heiress  and  could  give  you  a 
higher  place  in  society  than  you  could  command  for 
yourself,  would  you  be  able  to  understand  why  you 
should  still  have  a  work  of  your  own?  Position  and 
marriage  both  are  conditions,  not  occupations.  I 
studied  medicine  because  my  life  as  it  was  then, 
lacked  method,  system,  terminology  by  which  to  ex- 
press itself.  I  found  them  as  I  had  never  found 
them  before.  Is  it  strange  I  do  not  want  to  give 
them  up?" 

"Wouldn't  a  home  in  a  college  community  where 
thinking  men  and  women  came  and  went  supply  the 
same  in  a  way  that  would  bind  us  together  instead 
of  separating  us?" 

"For  some  women,  Henry,  but  not  for  me.  I 
don't  command  in  the  distinctively  social  relations. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  179 

I  have  no  zest  in  attracting  people  simply  for  the 
satisfaction  of  being  admired.  Service  seems  so 
much  more  worth  while.  In  the  capacity  of  your 
wife,  with  nothing  but  wifeliness  for  a  vocation,  I 
should  wreck  our  lives  with  impossible  longings. 
As  an  individual  I  shall  succeed.  I  have  succeeded. 
I  have  striven  and  realized  the  self  belief  that  impels 
to  success. 

"Four  years  ago,  I  might  have  developed  orthodox 
activities,  but  not  now.  Still,  I  think  all  could  end 
for  the  best.  We  should  come  together  in  the  home 
just  the  same.  Why  do  I  need  to  be  there  or  to  pre- 
tend to  be  there  while  you  are  away?  When  all  is 
said,  there  is  no  home,  but  communion.  Its  one  es- 
sential is  the  nearness  of  loved  ones.  The  caterer, 
upholsterer  and  art  designer  do  all  else." 

Henry  did  not  heed  her  train  of  thought  but  her 
voice  dispelled  his  impatience.  When  he  spoke,  it 
was  with  a  nobility  of  manner  that  excused  his 
words.  Consistent  with  his  conception  of  manhood, 
he  dared  to  assume  unlimited  responsibility  in  the 
life  of  the  woman  he  loved.  "Dearest,"  he  entreated 
bending  close  to  her,  "Won't  you  marry  me  now,  or 
in  a  month  or  two  when  your  commencement  is  over, 
and  you  have  been  home  a  little  while ;  give  up  this 
determination  and  be  my  wife  just  because  I  ask  it 
and  have  all  to  offer  that  a  man  can  offer  in  love  and 
respect?" 

Catharine  wavered.  It  is  so  easy  to  surrender  to 
another's  unreasoning  certainty.  It  had  been  a  lone- 
ly battle,  why  not  take  her  happiness?  "Henry,  I 


180  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

can't,"  she  moaned,  "I  have  no  right.'* 

"Right,"  he  burst  out,  "What  do  you  mean  by 
right?  Did  I  have  no  right  when  I  begged  you  not 
to  outrage  all  my  ideas  of  womanhood  by  this  detes- 
table study?" 

She  did  not  resent  his  bitterness.  His  standards 
for  manhood  justified  his  demands  from  the  woman 
he  loved.  "Well,"  she  answered,  a  dumb  pain  creep- 
ing into  her  face,  "I  suppose  I  mean  the  obligation 
of  everyone  to  live  out  his  life  in  the  way  he  thinks 
best." 

"Are  the  lives  of  others  nothing?"  Henry  inter- 
rupted, "If  you  had  asked  me  not  to  go  to  Paris, 
would  I  have  gone?" 

"No,  but  you  would  never  have  loved  me  if  I  had 
been  a  woman  that  could  ask  it." 

Don't  you  see?"  he  followed  her  up.  "You  have 
balanced  the  two  enigmas  against  each  other.  You 
couldn't  ask  me  to  stay  because  you  loved  me.  I 
must  ask  you  to  give  up  this  profession  because  I 
love  you.  Its  woman's  love  and  man's,  the  one  to 
inspire  and  encourage  the  other  to  protect  and 
shield." 

"To  protect  and  shield  from  what?"  she  demand- 
ed. 

"From  meeting  the  vulgar  necessities  of  living 
and  from  the  brutal  encounter  of  the  laboring  world. 
It  pushes  the  weak  to  the  bottom  to  make  a  pedestal 
where  on  the  strong  may  climb." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  touch  of  amused  tender- 
ness.   How  little  this  petted  child  who  never  climb- 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  181 

ed,  but  only  stood  erect  while  others  lifted  him  knew 
of  the  brutal  encounter. 

"The  world  is  not  cruel,"  she  said  slowly.  "It  is 
too  thoughtless  and  uncaring  of  the  individual  not 
to  let  each  man  or  woman  according  to  his  particu- 
lar fitness  work  into  the  place  he  can  fill  better  than 
another.  The  necessities,  food  and  clothing,  are 
only  the  appropriate  task  matters  set  over  everyone 
to  keep  him  busy  where  he  is,  until  he  is  worthy 
of  something  higher.  In  the  open  work-a-day 
world,  general  usefulness  and  the  special  demands 
of  a  man's  nature  shift  him  first  one  way,  then  an- 
other till  he  is  justly  placed.  Women,  because  they 
have  their  positions  established  not  by  the  relentless 
balancing  of  efficiency  and  desire  but  by  the  favor 
or  success  of  another,  often  fret  in  a  space  too  small, 
or  grow  frivolous  in  others  too  large." 

"Are  we  to  have  different  positions  and  diverse 
interests?"  Henry  questioned  with  an  air  of  suc- 
cinct rebuttal. 

"If  our  love  can  not  make  them  converge  to  a 
point  of  mutual  recognition,  can  artificial  limita- 
tion?" Catharine  asked,  and  the  man  immediately 
fell  back  on  his  personal  preference. 

"Catharine,"  he  pleaded,  and  his  voice  was  se- 
ductively kind,  "I  know  you  are  most  womanly  of 
woman,  at  heart  so  ready  to  lose  yourself  in  your 
appreciation  of  another.  Can't  you  Realize  the 
hunger  of  my  life,  to  have  you  for  myself,  sacred, 
above  and  outside  the  daily  exacting  existence?  I 
want  to  guard  you  from  contact  with  suffering  you 


182  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

connot  mitigate,  free  you  to  be  noble  as  you  cannot 
be  in  trammeled,  crowded  ways.  Won't  you  let 
me?" 

"If  only  I  had  been  fashioned  for  the  purple  and 
ermine  or  for  the  white  robes  of  the  priestess.  Some 
are,  some  are  not.  For  me  joy  is  in  the  rest  that 
comes  after  the  hand  to  hand  conflict  with  misery.  I 
must  strive  for  complete  nobleness,  grow  stronger 
and  gentler  touching  the  basest,  prove  myself  by 
resistance.  I  do  not  know,  I  may  be  wrong,  but 
sometimes  I  think  man's  coercive  tenderness  is 
grounded  in  a  second  rate  love.  I  have  felt  it  for  my 
little  sister.  She  is  beautiful  and  untroubled.  Not 
for  her  sake  but  for  my  own  I  could  choose  that  a 
knowledge  of  the  hard  demands  of  life  might  never 
mar  the  perfect  lines  of  her  face.  Her  loveliness  is 
such  a  joy.  Her  ignorance  seems  to  spiritualize. 
Yet,  for  myself  I  would  not  surrender  my  sorrows 
more  than  my  joys.  They  interpret  each  other.  I 
shall  not  dare  to  deliberately  limit  her  with  my  sel- 
fish fears;  but,  if  the  time  comes,  I  will  yield  the 
better  love  that  is  willing  to  suffer  with  her,  be- 
cause she  must  suffer  to  realize  the  comprehensive 
life.  Forgive  me,  Henry,  when  life  is  hard,  we  think 
it  out  mercilessly.  You  deceive  yourselves  when 
you  believe  you  can  hedge  us  about  with  devotion. 
You  do  not  keep  us  from  cares  and  troubles  but  only 
restrict  our  means  of  subduing  them.  You  concen- 
trate for  us  our  portion  of  pain  by  closing  upon  it 
the  doors  of  healthy  diversion.  We  live  in  the  sha- 
dows with  phantom  fears,  which  vanish  in  the  sun- 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  183 

light.    You  make  us  cowards  rather  than  saints." 

They  sat  still  on  the  rocks  for  a  long  time,  and  a 
hope  sprang  up  in  the  woman's  heart  as  the  man 
gazed  off  to  sea,  then  he  turned  to  her  with  grave, 
sweet  hesitancy. 

"Have  you  forgot,"  he  said  slowly,"  how  it  hap- 
pened that  society  came  to  be  organized  as  it  is? 
Are  there  to  be  no  children  in  our  home?" 

Catharine's  face  quivered  and  her  voice  was  hush- 
ed. "I  have  thought  there  might  be,"  she  said.  "In 
that,  perhaps,  would  be  the  end  of  baffled  efforts.  It 
would  revive  the  dead  hope  of  knowing  the  woman  I 
aimed  to  be.  But  she  had  better  hear  her  cradle 
songs  from  a  hireling's  lips  than  that  in  her  eager 
uncertain  youth  there  should  be  no  mother  mind  to 
point  the  way,  no  mother  will  to  lift  the  barriers." 

She  met  him  with  softened  face  and  compelling 
eyes.  The  same  beauty  he  felt  in  the  canyon  ra- 
diated still.  "Trust  me,"  she  said,  "I  shall  yield  all 
that  a  woman  should  yield  when  the  time  comes. 
But  to  be  a  complete  woman,  I  must  be  much  more 
than  a  woman,  There  are  no  words  for  it  all.  Only 
a  great  love  demands  a  great  faith.  Henry  can't  you 
believe?" 

He  could  not  doubt  her  woman's  nature  unsealed 
before  him.  Passionate,  yearning,  pleading  she  held 
him.    "Catharine,  I  will  try,"  he  said  lifting  her  up. 

She  clung  to  him,  and  the  face  she  hid  was  con- 
vulsed with  her  unexpected  joy. 

Henry  did  try,  but  each  morning  anew,  it  seemed 
to  him  only  a  ridiculous  whim.    Again  and  again 


184  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

they  went  over  the  endless  arguments,  till  at  last 
they  began  to  hurt  each  other.  The  arguments  were 
unheeded  but  bitter  personal  flings  left  their  sting. 
A  great  weariness  possessed  the  girl,  and  a  wild 
exasperation  made  the  man  torment  her  to  yield. 
At  last  it  was  finished.  Catharine  knew  he  could 
never  understand.  She  knew  too  his  manhood  was 
tainted  with  a  cowardice.  He  feared  to  face  his 
family  and  comrades  with  a  professional  wife,  one 
who  had  not  studied  merely  for  intellectual  sport, 
but  would  practice  in  the  common  place  manner, 
give  service  and  count  its  value  in  money. 

In  the  dingy  sitting  room  of  the  boarding  house, 
Catharine  made  him  believe  that  they  could  never 
marry.  Her  college  friends  had  departed  with  their 
last  farewells  and  her  own  trunk  was  packed  in  the 
little  room  above.  The  commencement  day  had  been 
without  joy. 

"You  have  chosen,"  Henry  said,  with  the  same 
voice  of  imprecation  her  father  used  four  years  be- 
fore. 

She  braced  herself  on  the  back  of  the  chair.  They 
had  risen  for  his  departure.  "No,  Henry,  it  is  not 
I,  but  you  who  have  chosen  against  love.  But  I 
do  not  mean  to  accuse  you  this  last  night.  You  have 
given  me  the  best  that  can  come  to  a  woman,  the 
privilege  to  love  to  the  fullest  extent  of  her  nature. 
I  thought  before  I  knew  you  that  the  great  blessing 
was  to  be  loved.  Now  I  know  it  is  the  fire  within 
that  warms  our  little  souls,  and  when  it  is  kindled 
we  need  not  let  it  die  with  all  the  unloved  waifs  in 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  185 

high  places  and  low  to  feed  it.  Of,  course,  if  you 
were  different  we  would  be  saved  this  parting.  Yet 
I  cannot  blame  you,  because  I  did  not  choose  another 
man.  It  was  your  instinctive  fineness  and  easily 
gained  completeness  that  won  me.  My  love  is  not 
belittled  in  its  object.  That  would  be  bitter.  I 
think  I  must  sit  down.  The  packing  has  tired  me." 
She  dropped  into  the  window  seat,  and  rested  her 
worn  face  on  her  thin  hand. 

Henry's  brow  twitched  with  the  impulsive  sym- 
pathy we  feel  for  the  animal  under  the  vivisection. 
It  was  to  this  he  had  yielded  each  day  for  the  past 
week.  Both  felt  the  uselessness  of  words,  the  im- 
possibility of  agreement.  His  heart  had  hardened. 
She  was  so  mad  to  hurt  them  as  she  did.  He  held 
her  hands  for  one  tense  moment,  then  broke  away 
without  a  word. 

She  sat  motionless,  listening  as  he  went  down  the 
steps,  turned  and  watched  him  from  the  window  as 
he  hailed  the  street  car.  There  was  the  deepening 
glow  of  dying  embers  in  her  eyes  and  the  tenseness 
that  came  so  quickly  to  him  seemed  left  behind; 
creeping  up  from  within,  fixed  the  drawn  features 
and  burned  in  the  dark  eyes.  At  last  she  stole  up  to 
her  tiny  room  and  sat  alone  in  the  night.  She 
held  her  hands  and  looked  out  on  the  clear  sky.  Her 
woman's  cry  for  her  woman's  life  burst  out,  wildly 
it  was  flung  into  the  infinite  and  beat  against  the 
Heavens  only  to  be  echoed  back. 

Finally  when  the  night  was  almost  gone,  she  set 
her  thin  lips  and  calmed  herself;  and  thought  life 


186  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

out,  daringly  disowned  each  fruitless  faith,  each 
groundless  hope,  without  reservation  looked  into 
nothingness  beyond,  and  in  the  ecstacy  of  despair 
found  peace.  From  the  joy  of  her  vigor,  to  face 
the  barrenness  without,  she  believed  in  her  power 
to  keep  love  warm  within.  With  an  unquenched 
gladness  in  living,  she  threw  up  her  little  window, 
and  felt  the  night  air  on  her  hot  face.  The  dusky 
light  of  the  city  dawn  diffused  the  night.  She 
thought  how  the  sun  on  the  Western  prairie  made 
radient  the  whole  broad  East,  and  her  spirit  was 
joined  to  that  of  her  fathers.  It  had  been  one  from 
the  beginning  of  America,  and  drove  each  Paine  in 
the  fullness  of  his  energy,  to  throw  himself  away 
to  make  clear  the  path  for  those  who  might  fulfill 
themselves. 

She  lay  her  head  upon  the  window  sill  and  slept. 
When  she  awakened,  it  was  to  the  sound  of  the 
landlady's  shuffling  slippered  feet  coming  up  the 
two  flights  of  stairs.  In  her  hand  she  carried  the 
news  of  death,  the  summons  home. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


CATHARINE  stepped  off  the  train  and  was 
caught  up  in  a  struggle  with  the  sleet  filled 
blast  that  swept  down  the  gap.  It  pelted 
her,  swayed  her,  and  switched  her  skirts  coiling 
them  bindingly  around  her  limbs.  She  could  not 
see  or  move,  only  contended  to  keep  her  standing 
ground.  In  the  long  journey,  the  sense  of  her 
brother's  death  had  been  merged  into  the  realiza- 
tion of  her  deeper  loss  and  each  day  the  home  com- 
ing yearning  crowded  closer  on  her  grief,  and  Rapid 
reached  nearer,  a  vision  of  approaching  comfort. 
Each  hour  of  the  swift  passing  miles  seemed  to  bear 
her  forward  beyond  the  quickest  speed  into  the 
arms  of  the  familiar,  toward  the  refuge  of  a  long 
free  sob.  But  this  May  morning  the  train  ploughed 
laboringly  along  the  drift  clotted  track.  Outside 
the  white  clouds  whirling  against  the  square  pains 
of  glass,  shut  from  the  vision  all  but  the  furied  an- 
tics of  the  snow  carrying  gusts.  To  her  eagerness, 
the  warmth  and  comfort  of  the  Pullman  were  the 
embellishments  of  prison  bars.  "To  swing  off  from 
the  impeded  car  and  ride  on  the  wind,"  was  her 
thought.     At  last,  five  hours  late,  they  had  arrived ; 

187 


188  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

and  she  was  alone  in  the  blizzard  rush  battling  to 
hold  her  poise  against  the  storm,  striving  to  find  the 
direction  of  the  wind  that  she  might  brace  her  feet 
and  stand  firm.  Across  the  platform  the  dray,  the 
bus  and  carriages  were  dark  blurs  in  the  driving, 
blinding  whitness.  A  few  stray  figures  propelled 
to  an  objective  point  beyond,  swept  past  with  heads 
lowered  against  the  biting  icy  wind.  She  struck 
the  angle  in  search  for  which  she  had  been  whirled 
this  way  and  that  and  in  the  face  of  the  gale,  lifted 
her  head.  Ah!  It  was  better  than  the  long  sob  of 
rest.  The  sleet  froze  on  her  veil,  glistened  in  her 
flying  hair,  brought  the  blood  to  her  face.  All 
sorrow  was  lost  in  a  response  to  the  rage  of  the 
element.  Her  cape  swelled  out  around  her,  then 
twisted ;  her  hair  switched  on  her  wet  cheek,  her  hat 
tossed  up  from  her  forehead.  She  reveled  defiantly, 
against  the  battering  force.     It  was  her  welcome. 

Out  from  the  dim  blur  of  the  station,  Mrs.  Allen 
was  thrown  against  her.  Mrs.  Allen  had  not  in- 
tended to  touch  the  younger  woman  but  at  the  colli- 
sion they  caught  each  other  to  keep  from  falling. 

"Your  mother  asked  me  to  come",  Mrs.  Allen 
apologized  shrilly  above  the  voice  of  the  wind. 

"It  was  very  kind",  Catharine's  voice  almost 
shrieked  discordantly  high. 

Once  inside  the  carriage,  they  wiped  their  faces 
and  shook  out  their  skirts.  Catharine  leaned  her 
face  on  the  glass  of  the  cab  door  watching  the  dray 
horses  flounder  in  the  drift  and  watched  the  sleet 
stung  driver  lash  them  till  they  floundered  out. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  189 

"I  wish  I  could  walk",  Catharine  said.  "It  would 
be  ridiculous  to  walk.     It  would  be  splendid." 

"Yes",  Mrs.  Allen  agreed,  opposite  her,  "But 
your  mother  is  waiting.  The  delay  has  been  very 
trying." 

"You  have  been  with  her?" 

"Almost  constantly",  Mrs.  Allen  answered. 

All  at  once  the  girl  saw  the  great  hollows  around 
her  companion's  eyes,  the  sharp  tense  lines  of  her 
face ;  as  her  voice  had  brought  to  Margie  the  realiz- 
ation of  death,  her  face  brought  it  to  Catharine. 
Suddenly  there  was  present  to  her  the  casket,  the 
little  brother's  lifeless  face,  the  darkened  room,  the 
hushed  whispers,  her  mother's  tear-filled  eyes,  her 
father's  stricken  voice,  the  clinging  clasp  of  Mar- 
gie's soft  hand.  "How  frightful",  she  shuddered. 
They  should  not  have  waited.  And  to-day, — ^they 
can't  bury  him  to-day." 

"It  was  spring  yesterday.  The  trees  were  bud- 
ded. They  waited  because  your  mother  needed  you. 
It  may  be  bright  in  the  morning." 

Catharine  leaned  back  with  set  teeth.  To  her  a 
carriage  never  went  so  quickly.  Occasionally  a 
swift  gust  cleared  the  snow  cloud  from  familiar 
land  marks." 

"It  will  be  easier  than  you  think.  It  will  be  a 
relief  to  be  absorbed  in  another's  grief,"  Mrs.  Allen 
comforted. 

The  girl  scrutinized  her.  "Thank  you",  she  said 
hoarsely  and  Mrs.  Allen  felt  the  relenting  of  her 
sternest  judge. 


190  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

It  was  an  hour  before  the  funeral  service  that 
Margie  asked,  "Where's  Kitty?"  and  repeated  soon, 
"Where  is  Kitty."  Mrs.  Paine  echoed  the  query  and 
Mrs.  Allen  went  in  quest  of  the  answer.  She  dis- 
covered her  on  a  side  porch,  back  of  the  dining-room. 

"I  can't  stand  it,"  she  groaned  when  Mrs. 
Allen  had  closed  the  door  behind  them.  She  leaned 
on  the  side  of  the  house,  her  dark  agonized  face 
thrown  to  one  side,  her  palms  pressing  the  weather 
boarding. 

Mrs.  Allen  reached  out  her  hand. 

"It  isn't  just  that!  Death!  Death  is  a  peaceful 
symbol  of  the  really  terrible."  Catharine  spoke  it 
defiantly. 

"I  know,  I  know,  dear,"  Mrs.  Allen  answered.  "It 
isn't  only  the  brother  you  are  burying." 

"How  do  you  know?  What  do  you  know?"  Catha- 
rine seemed  to  be  attempting  to  push  back  the  side 
of  the  house  in  her  effort  of  repulse. 

"Everything.      Nothing,"    the    woman    pleaded. 

"Come  child,  you  are  younger  than  I.  You  cannot 
go  back  alone.    Let  me  go  with  you." 

There  was  a  slow  relaxation.    Mrs.  Allen  caught  her. 

She  laughed,  one  hysterical  gulp.  "I'm  all  right. 
I  can't  even  faint.  Oh,  God !  If  I  only  could  faint ! 
If  I  could  be  ill! 

"You  can  sleep,  dear.  You  will  sleep  tonight.  You 
will  be  very  tired." 

Catharine  gave  her  one  sweeping  glance. 

"Thank  you.  I  can  go  to  the  end  now,"  and  it 
was  the  girl  who  opened  the  door. 


CHAPTER  IX 


CATHARINE  did  sleep  that  night  as  the  laborer 
after  hours  of  prolonged  toil;  and  in  the 
morning  came  down  late  to  the  delayed 
breakfast. 

When  she  entered  the  dining  room,  her  parents 
who  had  been  talking  in  low  tones  of  amazement, 
paused.  She  took  the  place  that  had  been  Walter's 
and  her  mother  handed  her  the  morning  Journal. 

Pushing  it  away  in  weary  disgust,  "It  is  worse 
than  photographs  of  the  flowers,"  she  groaned. 

"It  isn't  that."    Mrs.  Paine's  face  was  all  a  quiver 

Catharine  picked  it  up  and  caught  the  heading  on 
the  second  column.  The  first  was  devoted  to  Walter. 
"Didn't  you  know?"  she  exclaimed  with  a  quick  lift 
of  her  eyes  after  reading  a  few  lines. 

Mrs.  Paine  shook  her  head. 

The  Journal  was  given  up  primarily  to  recounting 
to  its  subscribers  the  dramatic  culmination  of  the 
most  personal  episodes  in  the  lives  of  one  another. 
The  reporter-editor  employed  such  embellishments  of 
language  as  he  could  command  and  attained  a  kindly 
confidential  style,  resembling  that  of  the  communica- 
tions published  in  the  organ  of  a  college  fraternity. 


191 


192  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

The  notice  of  interest  read: — 

A   Very  Pretty  Ceremony. 

"Yesterday  the  reporter  had  the  pleasure  of  at- 
tending a  very  charming  wedding  at  the  home  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Warner.  Mrs.  Warner,  as  everyone  knows, 
is  a  friend  in  sorrow  as  in  happiness.  On  this  occa- 
sion, she  came  almost  direct  from  casting  flowers 
on  the  new  made  mound  to  strew  them  on  the  bridal 
table.  The  Reverend  Mr.  Warner  was  unfortuna- 
tely absent  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Forbes  of  the 
Congregational  church,  officiated. 

"The  prinicpals.  Miss  Mildred  Larsh  and  John  C. 
Allen,  have  been  prominent  among  the  young  people 
from  the  beginning  of  Rapid;  for  both  were  here 
when  the  writer  arrived  and  that's  saying  a  good 
deal ;  for  there  wasn't  much  when  he  came. 

"John  has  purchased  the  Clark  house,  which,  be- 
ing the  largest  and  finest  residence  in  the  city,  will 
require  furnishings  in  harmony.  These,  the  bride 
and  groom  intend  to  purchase  in  Chicago.  They 
left  on  the  evening  train  for  the  East,  will  visit 
the  parents  of  the  bride  in  Iowa  and  other  Eastern 
points. 

Mrs.  Allen  senior  was  granted  a  divorce  Thurs- 
day and  in  the  ample  provision  that  was  made  for 
her,  John  Allen  showed  the  generosity  which  has 
ever  been  his  most  distinctive  characteristic,  and 
the  respectful  consideration  he  has  always  honored 
her  with. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  193 

"The  Journal  joins  with  a  host  of  friends  in 
wishing  them  all  happiness." 

Catharine  put  down  her  paper  and  stirred  her 
coifee. 

"I  feel  for  her?"  Mrs.  Paine  very  nearly  sobbed. 
"It  wasn't  right  but  she  did  it  for  his  sake." 

"What  wasn't  right?  "Catharine  asked.  The 
calm  of  psychological  investigation  tinged  the  deli- 
berateness  of  the  question  After  this  college 
course  as  after  the  other  she  was  to  bridge  between 
her  mother  and  herself  diverging  points  of  view  by 
an  inclusive  mental  grasp  of  the  common  foundation 
upon  which  both  were  erected. 

"The  divorce,  Catharine!"  her  mother  protested. 
"You  don't  believe  in  divorce?" 

"The  wrong  is  behind  the  divorce.  The  marriage 
of  John  and  Mrs.  Allen  was  the  sin.  I  don't  know 
whether  or  not  the  retribution  of  a  violated  law  can 
ever  be  escaped  without  universal  detriment  to  the 
workings  of  the  law.  And  yet,  when  one  has  re- 
pented, that  for  the  universe  he  should  submit  to  be 
smoothered  by  the  results  of  error. — Well,  I  am  no 
Christ,  who  can  commend  to  the  Christ  ordeal  a 
fellow  sinner.  It  is  he  who  chooses  the  desolation  of 
the  Christ,  who  finds  the  virtue  in  the  frailties  of 
others,  and  would  excuse  them  from  the  reward  on 
the  cross.  I  think  we  agree,  mother.  You  believe 
Mrs.  Allen  is  right,  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  Catharine!"  Mrs.  Paine  was  confused  to 
tears. 

"Don't  cry,  dear."     The  girl  leaned  across  the 


194  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

table  to  take  her  hand.  The  divorce  is  wrong  or  the 
result  of  wrong.  We  must  not  wrangle  for  a  dis- 
tinction. But  Mrs.  Allen  is  right.  She  would  hardly 
be  right  to  condemn  John  Allen  to  the  payment  of  a 
penalty  she  is  too  old  to  share,  when  she  herself  is 
the  primary  offender  no  doubt.  Whatever  fallacies 
we  topple  down  in  correcting  the  contradictions, 
we  will  come  back  to  what  we  started  with.  You 
dive  for  pearls  of  truth  and  find  them.  I  get  lost 
in  hunting  avenues  to  connect  the  beds.  As  I,  you 
stand  for  Mrs.  Allen,  don't  you?"  she  insisted. 

"I  don't  know.     She  has  been  so  good  to  me." 

"Yes,  you  knew  what  she  was  when  I  was  cum- 
bered with  the  rubbish  of  the  past,"  Catharine 
mused.  "You  knew  what  she  was  without  wasting 
yourself  to  learn  to  know.  And  yet — ."  She  drank 
her  coffee  down  and  arose —  "I  am  going  to  her." 

"You!  Now!" 

"She  came  to  you." 

"It  was  only  a  sorrow.  There  was  nothing  that 
could  not  be  mentioned." 

"Did  she  mention  your  grief?  Was  there  any 
need?"    Catharine  replied. 

"You  are  a  queer  girl,"  the  mother  said  proudly. 

Catharine  took  an  umbrella  from  the  rack  in  the 
hall  and  departed.  Outside  she  raised  it  to  shade 
her  eyes.  The  sun  glistened  on  the  melting  snow. 
In  one  day  spring  had  returned.  She  went  boldly  to 
the  door  of  the  house  she  sought,  and  Mrs.  Allen 
opened  to  her.  Confronted  by  the  object  of  her 
sympathy  she  became  awkward  and  tongue-tied. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  196 

"Yes  dear,"  Mrs.  Allen  after  inviting  her  in, 
stepped  out. 

"I  came — "  Catharine  was  brought  to  a  standstill. 
Mrs.  Allen  waited  as  a  soldier  for  a  call  to  duty. 
The  water  dripped  from  roof  and  trees.  The  grass 
shone  greener  through  the  silvery  snow. 

"I  thought,"  the  girl  blurted,  as  the  child  who 
speaks  what  he  has  prepared,  because  its  inappro- 
priateness  brings  dismay  which  deprives  him  of  the 
ability  to  improvise  a  fitting  substitute.  "I  was 
driven  and  I  came.  I  thought  there  was  only  one 
death  or  two  at  most.  It  must  be  there  are  a 
thousand." 

"A  thousand  lives  then,"  Mrs.  Allen  responded 
with  the  air  of  gracious  repartee. 

Chagrined  and  baffled,  Catharine  took  one  step 
down  from  the  piazza.  Her  eyes  fell  on  the  morn- 
ing Journal  in  the  snow  by  the  sidewalk  where  it 
had  been  thrown  from  the  carrier's  hand.  Mrs. 
Allen  passed  her,  picked  it  up  and  folded  it  without 
a  glance  at  the  contents. 

"And  how  is  your  mother  this  morning?"  she 
asked. 

Very  gently  but  in  a  puzzled  way,  she  was  observ- 
ing the  girl. 

The  young  face  darkened.  "Could  it  be  she  did 
not  know,  that  she  would  learn  it  from  the  Journal," 
Catharine  was  questioning  and  to  herself  was  ans- 
wered,  "Yes." 

"Mrs.  Allen !"  she  blurted  again.  "Would  you  be- 
lieve a  girl  could  understand,  not  so  finely, — I  would 


196  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

not  boast, — ^but  in  a  way  her  mother  could  not?  I 
was  insolent  four  years  ago.  I  have  been  taught. 
I  would  not  eaves-drop  on  your  reception  of  grie- 
vous tidings.  But  I  have  lived  and  I  have  thrown 
my  life  away.  I  shall  find  it  again,  but — Oh!  I 
did  not  come  to  receive,  I  came  to  give."  The  com- 
prehension on  the  other's  face  made  her  pause. 
"When  you  are  over  the  shock  of  the  blow  and  can 
think — "  Mrs.  Allen  detected  Catharine's  furtive 
shifting  of  the  eyes  from  the  paper  and  her  hand 
tightened  on  it.  "I  want  you  to  know  I  came  as  you 
came  to  mother,  as  you  came  to  me." 

Mrs.  Allen  folded  the  paper  closer.  She  was 
prepared  for  the  tidings. 

"I  am  going."  Catharine  put  a  promise  of  loyal 
return  into  the  statement. 

She  went  down  the  walk.  Mrs.  Allen  opened  the 
Journal  and  read.  She  laid  her  head  against  the 
pillar  of  the  piazza  roofing.  "My  boy!  My  boy!" 
It  throbbed.  Then  beyond,  she  saw  Catharine's 
uncondoning,  clear-eyed  face,  full  of  admiration, 
appeal,  deference.  For  herself  she  had  achieved. 
She  had  won  back  her  birthright. 


CHAPTER  X 


I  I  WT^ITTY,"  Margie  burrowed  her  head  into 
w^  the  folds  of  Catharine's  gown.  "I  want 
*  ^^    to  say  something,  but  I  am  afraid." 

Catharine  fluffed  the  yellow  hair  from  the  girl's 
forehead.  She  made  the  touch  very  light  and  play- 
ful, because  she  felt  it  growing  heavy  with  a  pent  in 
passion. 

"I  know  it's  wrong,"  the  girl  laughed,  only  part- 
ly conscious  of  the  wrong  and  of  the  consolation  it 
held,  "but  I  am  glad  you  didn't  marry." 

Catharine's  fingers  barely  touched  the  flying  ends 
of  the  ruffled  pompadour  and  drew  away.  I  hope, 
dear,  sometime  you  will  know  how  selfish  the  thought 
is."  The  voice  sounded  angry  to  the  girl,  but  the 
touch  of  Catharine's  lips  on  the  upturned  face  un- 
deceived her. 

"Oh  Kitty,  I  didn't  know.  I  am  not  glad.  I  am 
sorry." 

Catharine  smiled  at  her.  "You  shall  know,"  she 
prayed. 

Margie  lifted  her  head  and  arms  and  caressed 
her  sister,  refusing  to  desist  until  Fred  turned  in  at 
the  gate  of  their  lawn,  then  laughing,  she  sprang  up 

197 


198  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

and  ran  away. 

Catharine  went  down  the  steps  of  the  piazza. 

"I  came,"  Fred  smiled,  looking  up  and  holding  her 
hand,  to  give  you,  as  I  passed  by,  you,  who  have 
accepted  the  burden  of  the  hero's  crown,  what  you 
gave  me,  who  refused  it." 

"I  don't  know  what  to  say,  Fred.  I  am  glad  that 
you  came  and  glad  you  said  just  that." 

"Because,"  he  said  slowly,  loiteringly  refusing  to 
mount  the  piazza  steps,  "I  didn't  carry  my  crown,  I 
want  to  be  allowed  to  prevent  yours  from  crushing 
you.  The  town  knows  everything.  Perhaps  Walter 
told  his  bosom  chum.  Some  one  in  the  bank  report- 
ed the  size  of  the  checks  that  went  to  you.  Mrs. 
Austin  wrote  back  from  Philadelphia  how  you  did 
it.  I  want  to  lend  you  the  money  for  the  first 
years  of  practice.  You  will  have  to  live.  I  have 
•wjondered." 

"I  am  so  glad,  Fred.  I  could  let  you.  I  was  go- 
ing away  and  fight  it  out,  but  one  wants  her  own. 
You  must  not  mind  that  I  do  not  need  your  help. 
It  is  Mrs.  Allen  who  is  to  assist  me." 

He  looked  down  with  the  sad  quizzical  twist  at 
the  corners  of  his  mouth.  "It  is  fair,"  he  said. 
"Only  when  we  have  borne  our  own  crowns  can  we 
claim  a  share  in  lightening  those  of  our  neighbors." 

"Aren't  you  coming  in?"  she  begged,  as  he  turned. 

He  shook  his  head  and  she  knew  not  how  to  urge 
or  comfort  him.    So  he  went. 

She  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  piazza  and  lean- 
ed against  the  post  of  the  railing.    Her  mother  came 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  199 

out  and  took  the  chair  above  her.  "Well,  mamma, 
my  shingle  goes  up  to-morrow." 

"You  will  succeed,"  the  earnest  voice  replied  ora- 
cularly. 

Catharine  laughed.  She  was  eager  to  begin.  For 
the  intervening  month  since  her  return,  her  mind 
had  been  full  of  it.  But  to-night,  on  its  brink, — 
She  arose  hurriedly,  went  into  the  hall  and  return- 
ed with  a  cap. 

"Where  are  you  going  dear?"  her  mother  asked. 

"For  a  little  walk,"  came  the  calm  reply.  But  it 
was  an  impatient  step  with  which  she  struck  out 
into  the  middle  of  the  road.  Two  minutes  later  she 
strode  up  the  enbankment  of  Cemetery  Hill.  It 
sloped  from  the  perpendicular,  barely  enough  for  her 
quick  assent.  At  the  top  she  dropped,  struggling 
for  breath  and  tussling  with  mounting  sobs.  She 
tossed  her  head,  gulped  them  down  and  sat  still  and 
motionless.  She  had  thought  the  old  wound  was 
healing  with  a  nerveless  scar,  and  now  the  pain  of 
it  gripped  her  with  the  accumulated  strength  of  the 
four  active  years  and  the  full  ladened  month.  It 
took  hold  of  her  afresh  as  a  new  joy  can  seize  one  in 
the  spring.  "Why  should  it  have  come  to  me  now?" 
she  asked  herself  philosophically  wondering.  Then 
she  fought  a  sob  rebelliously.  Getting  up,  she  went 
blindly,  swiftly  across  the  level  plateau  on  toward 
the  tall  white  column  that  had  guided  her  steps 
when  she  had  gone  to  meet  Henry  four  years  before. 
No  approaching  figure  turned  her  eyes  from  her 
goal.    She  went  on  with  quick,  even  steps,  till  she 


200     EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

stumbled  in  a  depression  where  a  body  had  been 
removed  to  another  resting  place.  It  was  then  she 
saw  the  nearness  of  the  tall  white  stone,  the  iron 
rail  around  the  grave  and  Mrs.  Allen  leaning 
against  it  with  her  eyes  turned  toward  the  prairie. 
With  the  instinctive  desire  to  be  alone,  she  veered 
away,  then  whirled  and  walked  to  the  side  of  her 
friend. 

It  was  sunset  in  the  West  behind  them,  but  they 
looked  out  on  the  prairie,  undulating  off  to  rolling 
terraces  beyond.  The  scene  was  gray,  drab,  and 
dull  terra-cotta.  There  was  a  damp  stillness  in  the 
air.     Only  a  few  clouds  of  pale  blue  stripped  the  sky. 

They  recognized  each  other  without  smiling,  for 
a  moment  without  speaking.  Out  of  the  silence, 
Catharine's  unrest  burst  forth.  "Did  you  never," 
she  asked,  only  the  habit  of  life's  restraint  keeping 
her  voice  from  rising  shrilly,  "wish  sometime,  when 
you  found  a  friend  that  eminated  a  power,  a  strength 
you  could  not  claim,  to  throw  yourself  upon  her  and 
sob,  and  sob  your  life  away?" 

"Yes,  yes, — "  answered  Mrs.  Allen,  with  great 
tenderness  in  her  manner.  "But  that  is  not  for 
you,  my  child.  It  is  for  them  who,  when  it  is  over, 
can  go  back  to  the  half  love,  the  compromises,  the 
condonments,  the  deadning  self  effacements  with 
which  women  opiate  their  sorrows.  For  you,  life's 
revelations  must  vitalize  into  helpful  energy.  That 
is  the  relief  that  leaves  no  apathy  and  brings  the 
blessing  of  restful  sleep  and  strength  for  to-mor- 
row's work. 


EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE  201 

Catharine    leaned    wearily   against    the    railing. 

"But  I  have  so  many  years  before  me.  I  may  live  to 
be  seventy.  It  may  be  only  an  eternity  of  ecstatic 
misery,  such  as  this  when  I  met  you  a  moment  ago 
and  forgetful  usefulness  piling  up  energy  for  the 
next  attack  of  despair.  Her  eyes  roamed  the  prai- 
rie. 

Mrs.  Allen  smiled.  "There  are  a  thousand  lives," 
she  said,  "The  assurance  of  knowledge,  the  thrill  of 
mastery,  the  opening  of  hearts.  A  thousand  times 
you  will  lose  your  life  and  find  it." 

Catharine  shook  her  head.  "I  try,  I  succeed,  and 
then — "  her  voice  was  dry. 

"Sometime  the  pain  will  have  passed.  You  will 
find  that  you  have  conquered." 

Catharine  gazed  upon  the  calm  of  her  face.  "And 
men  will  look  upon  me  and  will  believe?"  she  whis- 
pered adoringly. 

When  Mrs.  Allen  returned  to  her  piazza,  Fred 
looked  up  at  her  from  one  of  the  low  chairs. 

"I  have  been  meditating  in  the  shadow  of  your 
house."    He  greeted  her  without  rising. 

"May  we  not  think  together  a  little  while?"  she 
replied. 

"Of  what?" 

"Of  you." 

"Oh  Lord!"  he  groaned. 

"I  have  been  on  the  hill  with  Cathanne." 

"Yes",  came  from  an  -mmense  gloom. 

The  woman  seated  herself  facing  him.  Her  rug- 
ged  features  were  relaxed   from   the   struggle  of 


202  EVERY  MAN  HIS  CHANCE 

years.  At  last  she  asked  no  more  of  life  yet  de- 
sired to  live. 

"You  are  younger  than  I  was  when  I  came  to 
Rapid",  she  mused. 

He  knocked  the  ashes  from  his  cigarette. 

"If,  from  the  moment  you  loved  her,  you  had  re- 
solved to  be  greater  than  the  reward  you  might  not 
covet,  to-day  you  could  have  married  Kitty  Paine.*' 

■'I  know,"  he  answered,  rigid — then  smiling  he 
added,  "If  I  had  had  the  insolence  of  righteousness." 

"The  humblest  may  look  beyond  the  prize,"  she 
averred. 

"An  inquisition  without  tools,"  While  he  writhed 
the  voice  was  tenderly  accusing. 

"That  you  may  know  the  eternal  joys.  I  have 
questioned  if  the  blessings  we  throw  away  are  ever 
as  wonderful  as  those  we  may  yet  win  for  ourselves." 

"You  say  that?"  Suddenly  he  straightened 
slightly. 

"What  is  lost  is  lost,"  she  warned.  Yet  missing  the 
reward,  to  comprehend  it,  thus  holding  it  within 
ourselves  is  not  an  empty  victory." 

"Have  you  not  learned,"~He  seemed  to  be  offering 
consolation — "that  no  man  can  chose  for  another?" 

"But  if  he  has  never  chosen  for  himself?"  she 
urged. 

"Not  to  have  striven  is  to  have  escaped  the  agony 
of  defeat  as  well  as  to  have  been  deprived  the  ecstacy 
of  attainment.** 

"It  is  never  tj  have  lived.*'  she  declared. 

"Never  to  have  lived,"  he  agreed. 


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